Blatant Lies
by Cherrienoir
Summary: Sarid's been dead 18 years now. But things are far from pieceful. Termina, kingless, is in turmoil with Link and Reena trying to help, leaving their daughter, Ryin, on the throne. She has no trouble ruling, but there's something sinister lurking in the shadows, a faceless evil even worse than Sarid. She doesn't know where to turn, even her friends are keeping secrets from her...
1. Prologue

**Yaaay! This children, is the Hidden Truths sequel! I have started it. Huzzah! It's also been approximatly one years since Hidden Truths fist came out. Anyways, this is about Link and Reena's daughter Ryin who we met briefly last story. There were multiple suggestions I didn't get to in Hidden Truths so now I'm getting to them now. Enjoy! **

**~Prologue~**

"OW!" Ryin crumpled to the ground holding her foot. Glaring up at the tree. "Dumb tree! Give me an apple!"

She was too short to reach even to lowest branches and she couldn't climb due to the lack of footholds. She glared dubiously around for something, _anything _to throw in hope of knocking an apple down, or at least use as a footstool. She spotted a basket about half full with vegetables nearby. With a quick look around, she tipped it over, spilling the vegetables and dragged to the base of the tree. She stood on the flat side and could barely reach the branches. But she still managed to haul herself upwards onto a flimsy looking branch; she smirked and began to climb.

About half way up she saw it, at the very top, the most perfect apple ever. _Her_ apple. She made a beeline towards it.

"Hey you! Get away from those apples!" The voice caught her off guard and she lost her balance and tumbled out of the tree, skinning her palms and knee.

The boy ran up to her, furious. "Just what do you think you're doing? These aren't your apples! AND you knocked over our vegetables!" he glared down at her "Well?"

She looked up at him teary eyed, holding her knee. He backpedaled, "Um, sorry, not important, right now." He knelt down beside her and she flinched away. "Look, I'm not going to hurt, you, let me just fix that up."

Ryin watched as he pulled out a handkerchief and dowsed in some water from a nearby pump. He looked about a few years older than her, maybe 8 or 9 with chocolate brown hair and sky blue eyes "I'm sorry I tried to steal your apples." She hiccupped through the tears.

The boy didn't even look at her "we'll talk about that in a minute." After washing her knee and palms he tied a new handkerchief around her knee. "Sorry, there's not much I can do for your hands."

He finally looked up at her, and was surprised to see all traces of her tears and disappeared and was instead glowing with happiness. "Thank you ever so much! You're really nice."

He blushed and scratched the back of his head nervously "It was nothing really, I couldn't just _leave_ you like that." He looked back at her, she was still smiling.

"I still think you're really nice! My names Ryin, what's yours?"

"My-my name? Uh…Shaoran"

She giggled "That's a funny name! Well, Shaoran, I suppose it's only polite to ask you now that we're friends, but may I please have an apple? I saw them when I walked by and they looked sooo good! I really only want one."

He stared at her, still taken aback by her sudden change in attitude. "Uh, sure I guess." He reached up and grabbed one from one of the lower branches, and handed it to her.

She rolled her eyes and looked skeptically at him "Not one of _those_ ones, even I could've gotten one of those."

He looked at her, bewildered "Then which one _do _you want?"

She pointed upwards "_Those_ ones! The ones at the very tippity-top. Everyone knows that the apples taste better at the top of the tree. Can I have one of those? Pleeeease?"

He stared at her like she was crazy. But her hopeful face got the better of him "Okay fine, gimme a sec." he used the upturned basket as a step and started climbing. When he reached the top he called down to her. "Okay! Get ready to catch."

She held out the base of her dress as a net to catch it in. "Ready!"

He tossed down about five apples, each one bouncing lightly in her dress. "Wow! Five apples? You're really giving me five whole apples!?"

He jumped down from the tree, and snatched one from her dress "No silly. I want to try your theory for myself. I want to see if the apples at the top are better than the ones at the bottom."

They both sat down to eat "Well they are. My daddy says so and he knows _everything._"

"Right." He took a bite. "Mmmm, hey, looks like your dad was right. They are better."

"See? I told ya so!" she munched happily on her apple, content "Mmmm, so good! I've tasted good apples before but yours apples are the bestest!"

He handed her an apple "Here. You can take this back for your dad as thanks for the tip."

"Fank you!" she could barely speak around her mouthful.

He watched her eat happily "If you like them so much then you can come back whenever you want and have some."

Her mouth dropped open and a bit of apple fell out-she didn't notice "Really? Really really? You're not even joking right now?"

He chuckled "Of course, we are friends."

Her eyes grew wider than before, if that was even possible "Friends? Really? I've never had a friend before. I only have my brother and my sisters, but never a real friend. If you're my only friend does that make you my best friend?"

He laughed "Well, If you want."

She nodded vigorously then grabbed his hands. "I'll come see you all the time if that's alright with you."

"Not _all_ the time, I still have a lot of chores and stuff to do most of the time, but you can come over when I'm not working. But you can't disturb me when I do them because-"

He was suddenly interrupted by the clattering of hooves and whinny of horses. They looked up and saw a squadron of soldiers ride up. Ryin blanched.

"Hmm I wonder what they want..." Shaoran asked, turning to her. He was surprised by her reaction "Ryin? What's wrong?"

"Halt! Unhand the girl, peasant!" The lead guard shouted from atop his horse, pointing her sword down at Shaoran.

He stood up defiantly "Excuse me? Unhand her? I'm not keeping her captive. Who're you to question me?"

Ryin squeaked and tugged on his sleeve "Shaoran..."

He shrugged her off "Who do you think you are coming on to my land and trying to take away my friend? What do you want with her anyways? She doesn't want to come with you."

"Foolish boy! I am the captain of the Royal Guard and I've come to save Lady Ryin from being your prisoner."

"_Prisoner_? She isn't my _prisoner_; she came here on her own accord. I won't let you-"

"Now, now, no need to fight." Ryin had stood up. She walked towards the guards placing a hand on Shaoran's shoulder as she walked by. He gaped at her. "Captain Loren is right- I should be going soon." She turned to Loren "Now apologize to Shaoran."

He stared at her "L-lady?"

"You heard me. Apologize. Now. Or I won't go home." She said, crossing her arms defiantly.

"But he tried to kidnap you!"

"Uh-uh, I kidnapped myself. I came over to visit, and you came and started being mean, so apologize."

Loren set his jaw "I'm-sorry, _Master_ Shaoran." He gave a curt bow from atop his horse to which Shaoran awkwardly returned, completely bewildered. "Now, Lady Ryin, may we please _go_? Your parents are waiting."

She cringed "Are they? Well let's go." Loren helped up on the horse. She called out to Shaoran "Bye Shaoran! I'll see you again soon!"

"Wait! Ryin! What-what's going on?"He called out jogging to keep up as the horse started away.

She giggled. "Sorry! I forgot to tell you, I'm a princess!" She called after him as the horse started galloping away towards the castle.

He stopped chasing the horse. "You're _WHAT_?"

She called to him again, her voice fading fast "A princess!"

He just stood there gaping, watching the horses until they were just a speck in the distance.

***astrix astrix astrix***

Link sat in the study reading his usual book in his usual chair just as he did before his life was changed so drastically these past few years. 5 children in 6 years and the most beautiful and kind wife he could ever imagine.

"Reading that book _again_? Haven't you read it like a bijillion times already?" Reena said as she walked in. "That's all you ever seem to read. Do you have it memorized yet?"

He rolled his eyes. "Pretty close."

"Useless. You really can't do anything, can you?"

He snorted. "We've know each other for how long? I would've thought you'd of figured it out by now."

She shook her head, laughing "Why did I even marry you anyways? I should've just given you over to Ruto. Eh, maybe she'd still take you." She laughed seeing his reaction of pure horror.

His eyes narrowed "I hate you."

"Love you too Link." She said sweetly.

Before he could retort Captain Loren walked in with Ryin in tow. "Here she is your Majesties."

Ryin skipped up "Hi mum!"

"Thank you Captain." Loren bowed and backed out. When he was gone Reena turned to her daughter. She crossed her arms and surveyed her for a moment. "Really?"

Ryin smiled sheepishly. "Really."

Reena smirked "Good."

"Wait-what!? That's _it_? She leaves the castle without telling anyone and that's all you say? She's as bad as you!" Link said, making himself known in the conversation.

Reena gave a short laugh "You make it sound like such a bad thing, being like me."

"Escaping the castle is not a good thing. What if something had happened to her?"

"Really? She's our kid; she can take care of herself."

"Mommy used to leave the castle too?" Ryin interrupted.

"Yeah, although it was a couple years before I actually realized and by then it was too late to top her." Link said dryly. Reena smirked but said nothing. "She'd sneak out and come see me."

"But if she went to go see you, how come you didn't notice her?" Ryin played her hand carefully, she knew from years of experience that if she asked the right questions she could divert their attention away from her to avoid getting in trouble _and_ get a story out of it too.

"Well, for one reason or another I was always too...busy to go see her." Ryin curled up in her father's lap and listened expectantly "And as you no doubt know by now, your mother and castle life don't really mix. Well she'd get really bored without me to talk to, so she'd write me a letter and disguise herself as a man named Sheik in order to come see me."

Ryin giggled "Why'd you hafta disguise yourself to go see daddy?"

"Well, like you _someone_ didn't approve of me leaving the castle." Link rolled his eyes. "So I disguised myself as Sheik to bring him my letter so he wouldn't get suspicious."

Ryin giggled. "But how did-"She was interrupted by a servant bursting through the door.

"Your Majesties!" he panted "I have urgent news!"

Link stood up "What happened?"

"We just received news from a Termian messenger. He wishes to speak with you immediately! He's in the throne room."

Link turned to Reena and they both nodded, then took off down the hall. Waiting in the throne room was a messenger looking thoroughly stressed and nervous. He turned abruptly as they hurdled into the hall. "What happened?"

"My Lord and Lady," he gave a quick bow. "I bring horrible news! Ikana has been destroyed!"

They gaped at him. Reena was the first to find her voice "Ikana? Destroyed? How is that possible?" She turned to Link looking for an explanation.

"Well, I know they've been going through a difficult time these past eight years. The civilians have been somewhat upset with their royalty. Maybe they did it?"

The messenger shook his head. "There was no one left alive. If they had destroyed it, they wouldn't of destroyed themselves, only the palace."

Link turned to Reena again. "I should go investigate. You stay here with the children."

She stared at him "What? Are you stupid? You can't go by yourself! You're useless, remember? What if it's a trap? If the civilians did destroy everything, they may have only wanted to draw us out for some reason. They could be hiding somewhere. I'm going with."

He sighed "Reena I don't have time for this. I need to go now and check the scene while it's fresh."

"You needn't worry about that Sire. It has been approximately one month since the attack."

They both spun around in shock. "_What?_ A _month_ why've you waited so long to tell us?"

He held up his hands "I assure you we've only just found out! Ikana trades goods with us once a month due to the fact that they're so isolated. They made last month's shipment just fine, but this month there was a significant delay, until the mayor sent someone to go find out the cause. When he arrived it was a ghost town. But none of the buildings had been destroyed, only the people had disappeared."

Link and Reena were speechless. Until Link broke the silence quietly. "Reena. I think we should both head out. Disappearing people sounds like something I'd need help with. I doubt we'll find anything, but we should go check it out in any case."

"Right."

Link turned to the man. "Don't worry. We'll take care of it." Then by some unspoken signal, they were off.

***astrix astrix astrix***

The wind howled through the deserted village, dust blew in little tornados around their feet as they stood at the edge of the cliff and looked onwards. A lone tumbleweed rolled past then. It was silent, save for the wind, and not even Ikana's famous crows were heard. Link and Reena just stood there surveying the wreckage of the once proud City of Royalty.

Link broke the silence after what felt like an eternity. "It's so empty." Reena only nodded.

They head off, following the river as it cut the village in half. "Oh... They destroyed the Music Box House." Reena stated as they came to a decrepit house with a water wheel. The beautiful paint colours were faded and peeling and the large speakers on the roof were cracked and sagged. Despite the plentiful amount of water coming from a cave at the top of the hill, there was no music playing.

Link nodded. "No wonder it's so quiet."

They kept moving, silently making their way through the carnage. They toured around the entire village once and finally stopped at the entrance to the palace. "We needn't check inside the palace, we've seen all the emptiness we need."

"Link, I don't like this. What happened here? It looks like everyone just upped and walked away. The palace and the Music Box House are the only places that look affected, and that's only because of the civil war. I remember hearing about the citizens giving the professor and his daughter a hard time for it."

He looked around. "I really have no idea. I thought coming here would give us an idea but all it did was fuel our doubt." He was silent for a moment. "I guess there's nothing more we can do here. We can't bring back these people. There's nothing more we can do."

"But Link, what about the rest of the country?"

"How do you mean?"

"Just like we govern all of Hyrule, the Ikanian royal family is in charge of all of Termina. With no king, mass chaos will break out."

Link smiled wryly and looked at her. "You act like that's something new."

**Yay! Prologue done! I have chapter one done too but I think I'll space it out a bit before you get it. How was this chapter? Please tell me?**


	2. 1 A Lecture, A Voyage, A Drowning

**Dear Lord, this is a long chapter. I promise the rest won't be as long. Uh, yeah, a better description of this new story, because lat chapter's kinda sucked. This is Hidden Truths' promised sequel. I wrote it but Yasha Kyouran gave me the idea and came up with half he characers and half the plot. But I put it all together. This story won't focus on Link and Reena, it'l be mostly about their daughter Ryin, who we met last chapter. Don't worry, they'll still be in the story. A warning, this story probably won't be as good as the last one. Probably. I had several years to plan and work out the kinks in the last one, this one took only a couple months to plan because I really wanted to start writing for you guys. Also the updates will take longer because I have lots of school stuff and band and cello lessons and work and swimming and no spare. But the good news is, this'll be a significantly longer story. Yaaay! I'll let you read now. I'm done.**

_**Chapter One: A Lecture, A Voyage, A Drowning**_

"-And so, Sarid drank the potion he had received from Ganondorf years before and turned into a horrid beast. Then threatened your father-" Ryin sat there eyes wide, staring off into the distance, hatred mixed with utter boredom. She rocked gently back and forth, to give her _something_ to do. A dying fly buzzed pathetically on the windowsill just beyond Sir Lethan. It was perhaps the most amusing thing she's seen in the past three hours. She watched it, willing it to stay alive and entertain her for the next two hours, eight minutes and forty-six seconds remaining in her lesson. But it was only feebly moving now, all the life almost completely drained away. On either side of her, Melly and Deren had similar looks on their faces. Even Melly who, out of Ryin's seven siblings was the most focused in lessons had her face covered with her hands and was gently rubbing her eyes. Deren had his face plastered to his desk, eyes staring off into space, too bored to even sleep. Sir Lethan's voice had that affect on people. The most boring voice ever experienced, but unable to put even a narcoleptic to sleep. "-mother showed up, despite being ordered by several different people, on several different counts to stay away from the battle. However she-"

"She didn't show up as herself. She was disguised as Sheik, because at that time my father was still too dense make the connection. We _know_. We've heard this story enough times." Ryin couldn't stand his droning voice any longer. His horrible voice repeating a story she'd heard on many occasions.

"Princess Ryin, I must yet again ask you to be quiet in my class while I'm teaching."

"Wait, you can do that?"

"Do what?"

"Just _ask_ someone to be quiet. That's good news. Be quiet. " Melly removed her hands from her eyes and looked at her pityingly.

"Really Ryin? Really?"

"If he can do it so can I." Melly only shook her head, groaned and went back to massaging her eyes.

Sir Lethan was still recovering from Ryin's comeback, mouth flapping. "You-you can't say anything of the sort!"

She whipped around and faced him "Watch me. I find you boring and extremely vapid. I've heard this story a gazillion times from my parents-who were ACTUALLY THERE- and each time was _way_ more interesting than this. Your voice makes me want to stab at my ears with a knife. Seriously! I'm so bored I'm even contemplating my mental health."

Deren raised his head up from his desk "You're contemplating your mental health? Have you realized you're crazy yet?"

"Yes! I'm actually almost a hundred percent positive that I have psychotic tendencies."

Melly joined in the conversation, suddenly interested. "Really? How so?"

"Well...the most exciting thing I've experienced all day was a dying fly. I'm actually sitting here _fascinated_ by it dying. I'm _enjoying_ it."

Her siblings had reactions on polar opposite sides of the reaction spectrum. Melly looked horrified while Deren said "What? There's a dying fly in here? You lucky bastard! Why didn't you tell me? I would've loved to watch a fly die. The rest of us had to entertain ourselves in our own way and you got a dying fly! Where is it?"

"Well it's dead now."

"Damn it! Now I actually have to listen to him speak." He gestured in Sir Lethan's direction

"You two are both sick! Watching a fly die is your idea of entertainment? I'd rather listen to Sir Lethan talk!"

"Shut up Melly, your nerdyness isn't appreciated in our slacker class."

"Maybe if you _paid attention_ you'd realize that some of the stuff is actually interesting."

Sir Lethan looked bewilderedly at his class. It had been silent a moment ago now it had erupted into a full out argument over truly idiotic things. Three kids had the power to make his carefully laid out lessons to take a drastic turn for the worst. Not even his class of the five younger children got this rowdy. The three of them constantly bickered back and forth. He couldn't take it anymore. "Silence!" he practically screamed.

They all shut up and turned to him with a look of bewilderment on their faces. "Silence, please. You cannot spend countless hours squabbling and arguing like a pack of cuccos. My classroom requires order and silence. I do not talk because I enjoy the sound of my voice."

Ryin leaned over to Deren and whispered to him "Really? You could've fooled me." He snickered.

Sir Lethan glared daggers at them. "I talk so that I can educate you on the history of the greatest nation on the face of the planet. And I will not stand for Hyrule's next three potential king and queens to be not paying attention and jumping down each other's throats at every possible opportunity. You must learn to-"

"Um, excuse me? Sir Lethan?" Ryin waved her hand in the air.

Sir Lethan merely carried on "To control your-"

"Sir Leeeeethan? Hey! Come on! For once in my life I'm willingly talking to you without being forced. Answer me!"

He glared at her, but carried on anyways through gritted teeth "As I was saying, you must control-"

Ryin, tactless as ever, carried on anyways. Completely overriding his speech with her original comment. "We're not Hyrule's next three in line."

"Yes you are," he quipped "so you must control-"

"_No_, we're not." This time it was Melly who interrupted. "We're not even supposed to be living in the castle."

Deren nodded "Yeah, our home is Lon Lon Ranch."

"We're only living here because Grandma and Grandpa died and no one could take over the castle, because Auntie Lera and Kasten were taking their dear sweet time getting married over in Salderin. Then they had to have a kid, which took even longer. When Carter grows up and gets to be old enough to rule he's going to rule Salderin and Auntie and Kasten will come here and rule. And we will all go back to Lon Lon Ranch and live happily."

"Don't forget the civil war."

"That's not an excuse." Ryin snapped "We can take care of ourselves; we don't need someone to watch us while mom and dad kick ass in Termina."

"It's not us that needs taking care of. It's Hyrule. If our current prince and princess are off fighting the forces of rebellion in the next country over, our country is going to need some direction. Or else we might end up in a state of rebellion like Termina." Melly pointed out.

"But-"

"Stop! There you go again! Arguing constantly. I won't accept it. I don't care if you three are the goddesses themselves reincarnated into teenage forms, you _will_ learn your lessons in case by some chance you are required to rule the country."

"But, Sir Lethan, if we were the goddesses, then we'd know all about the history of the land-since we, you know, created it and all." Ryin and Deren laughed. Sir Lethan looked down at Melly, unimpressed.

"Hey! I'm a boy-I can't be a goddess in disguise." Deren protested.

"Well actually-" Sir Lethan started, but they bowled right over him.

"Well there's no important male figure in this society, so please leave and send in Carei."

"Shut up Ryin." They all laughed.

"Honestly the three of you are worse than your mother and she was older and more mature than you."

"You make it sound like such a bad thing."

Sir Lethan sat down at his desk, covered his face in his hands and groaned to himself "Goddesses help me. One Reena was bad enough, why curse me with three?"

Just then the door swung open and standing there in all her glory, was Reena herself. "Hey kids! Miss us?"

"Mom!" They all ran to her and hugged her. Sir Lethan groaned again.

Link appeared in the doorway too. "What about me?" They hugged him too.

Reena turned to Sir Lethan "Well if you don't mind, we'll be taking our kids now."

"_What!?_ Absolutely not! They're in the middle of a very important lesson! Under no circumstances may you remove them from my care."

"Care? What care? I know the kind of care you give, the kind that makes kids want to puncture their own eardrums with pens. I wouldn't-"

"What my charming wife is _trying_ to say is that we just got back from an extremely long trip to Termina. We'd really like to spend time with our children if that's alright." Link interrupted before it could escalate further.

Sir Lethan sighed "If I say no, will you take them anyways?"

"Yes."

He threw up his hands in surrender. "Fine! Go ahead take them! They're little devils, the lot of them! If I spend another minute with them, I might throw myself out the window."

"And that would be bad because..?" Ryin asked. Reena and Deren snickered

"Shut up Ryin." Link said, cuffing her on the ear. He chauffeured everyone out the door. He stuck his head back in "Thanks."

"Just... go."

Once in the hallway they all burst out laughing. "Torturing Sir Lethan again are we?"

"No way!" Deren protested "He's the one torturing us!"

"Yeah, his voice should be considered a form of torture." Melly shivered.

Link and Reena shared a knowing look. "I wish." She said softly. Link gently touched her scar-filled back and she reached up and touched a now-faded scar above his eyebrow. Memories of their torture flashed in both of their minds for a moment before going back to dwell in the deepest regions of their hearts. It wasn't enough to send them into a whirling pit of despair, but enough to set them on edge. Fortunately their children were too busy talking to notice anything.

"_And_ he's like a bijillion years old! I mean according to Impa he was there when she was first hired to watch over mom. And that was when she was first born."

"Maybe he's ageless and immortal. Maybe he'll just stay the same forever. So when we have kids and they come to the castle he'll be the one teaching them." Melly theorized. Ryin and Deren just stared at her, horror struck. "What?"

"Please don't say that. No seriously, never ever say that again." Ryin said with a little shiver.

"Oh man, nightmares gonna happen tonight."

"Changing the subject," she turned to her parents "way to take your time coming to get us. We had to endure three hours of torture! Couldn't you've come to get us sooner?"

"Hey, be happy we came to get you at all. We could've just left you there for the full five hours. We didn't _have_ to be sneaky people and hide our return until three days after our real one."

"Oh but I like being sneaky. And messing with Sir Lethan. No worries kids, forget your father, I enjoyed hiding out and pretending not to be there until you had your lessons." Link shook his head at her.

"So what family bonding do we want to do now?"

"Family bonding?"

"Yeah, you told Sir Lethan that we were gonna go bond."

"We weren't actually serious. We just said that to get you out. We're going to go spar. You guys can do whatever you want."

All the colour drained out of Ryin's face. "S-spar? Really? Well...have fun with that I'm going out! I may or may not be back in a couple days-Shaoran is in desperate need of time off from work. Gonna go integrate him into the real world. Uh-bye!" she ran off quickly.

Deren snickered "Doing what for a couple days? One normally waits till _after_ they're married to go on a honeymoon." Everyone else snickered as well.

Link turned to Reena "Ok, enough about our daughter's love life, let's go." She nodded "See you two later." They headed off to their room to collect their weapons.

Deren turned to Melly "Soooo...what do ya wanna do now?"

"Sorry, I'm gonna go work with Impa on my transporty flash thing that her and mom can do. Apparently I'm almost ready to try going outside the castle!" she said excitedly.

"You and your magic. Mom had eight children and only one of them inherited her powers. And it's not even Ryin, who has a piece of the Triforce. Why'd it hafta be you anyways? You have a hobby. Reading. I'm the only one without one. The twinsets have each of themselves- Nia has Nera and Teiry has Tallen. Carei is some animal whisperer, you have magic powers and read and Ryin had her boyfriend. I really need a hobby."

"Try something you're good at. Like...swimming."

"Nah, that's not really something you can do by yourself."

"Here," she handed him a book "you could try reading, you might actually enjoy it. Me? I have things to do." She walked off in the direction of the study.

Deren just stood there, he turned the book over in his hands. Suddenly there was a cry of rage from up the stairs. He turned in that direction. Link stood there with a common practice sword clenched tightly in his fist. He looked livid. "RYIN!" he bellowed. In the background Reena laughed heavily. Deren sighed. Not again.

***astrix astrix astrix***

Shaoran stood up, wiping his brow. He sweated heavily in the hot sun, but he needed to keep going. The crops needed to be harvested and the fields prepared. It was long and tedious work but someone had to do it. And he just happened to be that someone. With no father or siblings to help and a mother who had less than perfect health most of the time, he was the only able person to do it. He didn't have time for a hobby-this was his life. 19 but with the body and maturity level of at least 25.

"You know you might want to invest in a shirt." Called a familiar voice behind him. "Just saying."

He rolled his eyes and sighed, then turned to face the source of the voice. "Hello Ryin." She sat on the nearby fence, lounging easily. She watched him, smiling. She hopped down and skipped over to him. "Is it too much to hope that you came over to help me work?"

She laughed "Yup."

"Damn. So to what do I owe the honour today?"

"I'm bored, come on a voyage with me."

He gave a hard laugh "A voyage? Not today."

She pouted. "Why not?"

"I have to work." He explained.

She rolled her eyes and sighed impatiently "You _always_ have to work. You never have time to hang out with me."

"Well working is my job, I'm the only one who can do it. I don't have time to entertain you."

Her eyes narrowed. He watched her. "No." She still glared at him. "If you want to spend time with me that badly you could help me pick these." He handed her a carrot "That way, I'll get done even faster _and_ we can spend time together. See? A win-win situation."

She glared mutinously at the carrot in her hands. Then, in one of her sudden mood swings, was suddenly content again. She waved a hand as if waving the words away. "That's fine. But if you're going to work, at least put on a shirt."

He looked at her "Why? It's hot out; I always work shirtless in the summer."

She rolled her eyes "Exactly," she said in an obvious tone "that's the problem. However I don't much fancy getting mobbed by your harem when we leave."

He laughed. "My _what_?"

"Harem." She said nonchalantly, shrugging. "You know your fan club."

He laughed even harder and stared at her. "What fan club?"

Ryin looked at him like he was crazy. "Um, the fan club that involves just about every girl in Hyrule?" he stared blankly back at her. "Really? You have no idea what I'm talking about? Wow. You really are oblivious. Well, as I said, just about every girl has a major crush on you."

"Major crush on _me_? Why?"

"You're kidding right?" he looked at her "Oookay then. I knew you were socially oblivious and all but really Shaoran. You had _no_ idea whatsoever?"

"No."

She faced-palmed, then muttered to herself "You're living every guy's dream to have any girl he wants and you don't even know." She sighed "Okay! Well fortunately, from my many trips outside the castle I have enough knowledge to keep you informed, so pay attention. Basically all the girls in town are madly in love with you and-"

"Why?"

She glared at him for interrupting, but answered his question anyways. "Because you are virtuously perfect in every aspect. Hardworking, kind, funny-when you actually talk to people. Um, you're a fairly attractive individual." She laughed "Fairly! No, scratch that. You are a _very_ attractive person. With nice eyes. You are strong and manly. Big muscles. Girls like big muscles- it shows how strong you are. You have a very nice body and girls find it very pleasing when you do intense physical labour half naked. It creates many somewhat inappropriate fantasies about you." She carried on in a slightly detached, dreamy voice.

He stared at her, speechless. She slapped her hands on her mouth in horror and blushed bright crimson. "I-I mean that y-you, uh... s-so I've, um, heard... M-most g-girls have very, um, p-perverse thoughts. N-not all, of course. Most d-don't." She babbled.

He raised an eyebrow. "And here I thought you were just easily persuaded about not going adventuring." He laughed. "If you're only in it for my body, you can just say so."

She turned an even deeper shade of red "N-no! I don't- not me! I'm talking about everyone else! All the other girls. I'm not that way!" She waved her hands in front of her.

Shaoran turned to her and wiped the dirt off his hands. "Oh really?" He took a step towards her with a glint in his eyes.

She took a step back "R-really!"

In a flash he had her pinned to a neighboring tree. One arm planted on the tree beside her head he stared directly into her eyes. She squirmed and melted under his gaze. "So Ryin, we've been friends for a long time now."

"Eleven years" she said lamely.

"Right. And you know you can tell me _anything_. Well now I'm curious, do you find muscles attractive?"

Her mouth opened and closed frantically and she looked desperately around for an escape. "Um, maybe?" he raised an eyebrow. "Uh, yeah!" she held up a finger like she had an idea "Because muscles means you're strong and if I were to date someone or goddesses forbid _marry_ someone, they'd have to be Ryin-approved strong."

Shaoran watched her panic. "Okay, let me rephrase that. Do you find _my_ muscles attractive?"

She squirmed and blushed even deeper. "Crap." She looked around, anywhere but his eyes. Something above them caught her attention. "Oh! We've been friends for eleven years, yeah?"

"You just said that. Stop avoiding the question, I won't let you escape it you know."

She ignored him and pointed upwards "Look! This is our apple tree. Where we first met."

This caught his attention slightly. He looked up as well. "Yeah?"

"Yup. Climb up and grab me an apple from the top." She said, stalling for time. He looked at her oddly. "Pleeeease?" He gave her a long look and climbed up the tree. He tossed down a large, shiny red apple. "Yay! Thanks Shaoran!"

He shook his head at her "You haven't changed at all since we first met."

"Yeah well you've changed so much. All the work you do is gonna be the end of you, you know. Really, I don't even know why I came talk to you if I know you won't come and entertain me. All you ever do is work." She complained.

He sighed, but took the bait. "I don't _always_ work. I spend a lot of time with you-more than I should in fact. When you show up, I don't get half as much work done as I could. You just have that effect on people."

"Or more specifically, you." She pointed out.

They had started heading back in the direction of the farm. Shaoran picked up a large sack of grain and a stack of firewood as he passed his work site. "Not necessarily. You're actually one of my few friends and I know I work too much. So I'm slightly more open to your suggestions."

Ryin scoffed. "Hardly! I came over to go on an adventure and you make me do hypothetical work."

He laughed "Hypothetical work is the only kind of work you'll willingly do."

"Hey! I help! You just never let me."She protested.

"That's not true." They stopped off at the water pump to fill up two nearby buckets, which Shaoran insisted on carrying, despite his full load. Ryin, hands on hips, cocked an eyebrow at him. He smiled sheepishly and handed them over to her "Riiight...sorry."

They continued walking back towards his house. After awhile they made in to the back door. Shaoran piled the firewood and bag of grain outside. He took both pails from Ryin and left one by a nearby empty washtub. They both entered the house.

"I'm back!" Shaoran called out to the empty kitchen.

"Welcome back." They both turned as a young and tired looking woman made her way down the stairs. She walked into the kitchen.

Shaoran set the pail on the counter and moved to hug her. "Hey mum."

When he let go Ryin moved to her with a hug and a quick peck on the cheek. "Hiya mum!"

She smiled "Hi Ryin, it's been awhile. Come to whisk Shaoran away to undisclosed locations?"

"Yup!"

"Well have fun." She regarded her son. "Make sure you put on a shirt before you leave."

He threw up his hands "How come everyone's so obsessed with whether or not I wear a shirt?"

His mom moved to the counter and picking up a basket of bread offered Ryin one. Then said casually "I just don't want the two of you to get mobbed by your fan club."

Shaoran stared at his mother while Ryin laughed and laughed, barely able to prevent herself from choking on her bread. "_WHAT!?_" He turned from his mother to Ryin and back again. "You two have been conversing again haven't you?"

His mother looked at him innocently "No. Why would you think that?"

"He didn't believe me today when I told him he had a fan club." Ryin was still laughing.

She looked back at Shaoran, amazed, "Honestly honey, all these years and you never realized?" She watched his blank expression. "Did you really think I make that much bread? Half the bread and vegetables we have are because girls give them to us in an attempt to get into your good graces."

He stared at her open-mouthed. "B-but if that's true how come I never see most of them."

She waved her hand impatiently "Because I don't let them see you. If they come to the door, chances are I'll send them away."

Ryin giggled at his bewildered expression. "Really, if you didn't work so much maybe you'd know these things." Shaoran's mom nodded in agreement. "So, now that you have your mom's confirmation, do you believe me?" he nodded. "Good. And you see, that's why the women of this town hate my guts."

"Why?"

She looked at him like he was stupid "Because I spend so much time with you, and am like, the only girl you talk to. Hmm, maybe you should get a girlfriend just to get them off my back." She thought for a moment. "Or at least impede your work ethic when I'm not around."

Shaoran was about to comment on her absurd suggestion when his mom cut in. She crossed her arms defiantly. "Uh-uh. My son won't be going out with any of those useless town brats. If he's going to get a girlfriend it'll have to someone worthy and of use."

"Worthy and of use? Really mom? Like what do you have in mind?"

"Someone pretty and kind. Who'll stop you from overworking yourself? She can't be too clingy and can't have you take care of her all the time. She needs to take care of herself. Preferably with a sense of humor to keep you from going insane. Someone like...Ryin!"

Shaoran face palmed. He and Ryin both rolled their eyes. "Oh boy, here we go again."

"Shh. I enjoy when she goes off on her 'Shaoran and Ryin' tangents-it outlines how glorious I am."

"Exactly! You need a wife like her. She is a perfect example of a flawless woman. And she is the only one able to distract you from work. Stunningly beautiful. I approve. Now you just need to face your fears and face up to the feelings I know are inside you. I'm rooting for you!"

They both stared at her then burst out laughing. "Aw come on mum! Me and Shaoran aren't like that! That's just too weird. Besides, I don't think Shaoran can handle me as a first girlfriend."

He looked insulted. "Hey! I've had a girlfriend before! In fact I've had several. And don't forget I handle you just fine on a daily basis."

This caught their attention. "What?! You've had a girlfriend? When was this? You didn't even tell your mother!"

Ryin pushed her aside. "Forget that! Who were they? Anyone I know? And just how plural is plural? How many girlfriends have you had?"

He blushed slightly "Never you mind. Let's go. You wanted to go adventuring, right? Well let's go." He grabbed a shirt and pulled it on.

Ryin waved a hand. "No, no. I'd rather hear about this. Continue."

Shaoran's mother nodded. "Mhm, me too."

Shaoran blushed a deeper shade of red. "Uh-uh, we're going now. 'C'mon." He grabbed Ryin by the collar and towed her out the door. "Never again, never again." He mumbled to himself. "By mom!" he called over his shoulder.

From her awkward dragging position Ryin waved as Shaoran dragged her through the door. "Bye mum!" She laughed and waved back.

When they were finally outside, Shaoran let go of Ryin and sighed as they made their way over to the stables around the back of the house. "Really, you could try to behave yourself." Ryin only giggled.

***astrix astrix astrix***

"So where, pray tell, are we going?" Asked Shaoran, sometime later. "We've been riding for hours and you still haven't told me where we're adventuring to."

"It's a secret." Ryin said casually.

"A secret? So let me get this straight, we're travelling to some far off place that'll remain nameless until we actually get there. Right?"

She nodded. "Right! ...You have a sword with you, right?"

"Of course I have a-wait, WHAT!?" he glared at her.

"What?" she looked back at him innocently.

"So, in addition to what we just established, the undisclosed location and all, you're telling me that this place'll be so dangerous as to I'll be needing a sword?"

"Pretty much. We're going to Termina after all; they're still civil warring right now. And that's the only hint about our destination you'll get."

"Termina." He said flatly. "And your parents are ok with this?" the look on her face told him what he needed to know. "Uh-huh. And if we run in to them? You know they have that weird habit of showing up unexpectedly."

Ryin gave a high-pitched nervous laugh "AHAHAHA. Relax; they're safely tucked away in Hyrule Castle. Not scheduled to leave until I get beck." He gave her a look. "No seriously. They cannot, will not leave until I get back."

"Oh really? And why is that?"

Ryin gave a quick look around to make sure no one was around. She then lifted her saddle blanket to reveal the hilt of the Master Sword. Shaoran stared at it, stunned. "Yeah... He can't leave since he doesn't have his sword. They can't come find me 'cause they have no clue where I am. The only thing for him to do is sit, wait and hope I get back soon."

"Why?"

"Because my sword sucks. Also we're going into dangerous territory and the better the sword the better our surviving chance. Also I didn't want them to show up while we were escapading."

"You're an idiot."

"Thanks _so_ much Shaoran, I'm glad I got your vote of confidence."

"No problem. Where're we going that's so dangerous?"

"Not telling."

"Please? I need to know what I'm up against."

She paused and thought for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah, ok. But first you hafta tell me something."

"Ok, shoot."

"Who were the girls?"

He stared at her flatly, unimpressed. She smiled back, serenely. "Keep your secret then. I like surprises." He spurred his horse and sped up so they were no longer beside each other.

She spurred her horse as well, so she was beside him again "Awwww don't be like that Shaoran. I'll tell you were we're going." He didn't answer. She took that as a sign to continue. "Well, you actually gave me the idea. When we were talking about when we first met."

"Sooo... that'll be where exactly?"

"Ikana!"

He stopped dead. "_What!?_ Did I just hear you right? Ikana? What possessed you to want to go there?" he paused "How did _I_ make you want to go there?"

"Not you exactly, but when I went home after that day, we first heard about Ikana being destroyed." He still looked unimpressed, but started walking again.

"But what do you want to go there for?"

"I've wanted to go since I first heard about it and after we were talking about how we first met and how I have my dad's sword so he can't follow us, I decided it would be the best time to go."

"But why Ikana, of all places? It's super dangerous."

"No it's not. It empty. I just want to go look."

"No it's not! Not empty, I mean. There are garos and a dragon!"

This caught her attention. "A dragon? Really?"

He nodded vigorously, thinking it'd dissuade her "Yeah, the ghost of the Royal Ikanian protector, who was a dragon. Even as a ghost he's still really dangerous and will kill all intruders who cross his path. And in case you didn't realize, we're intruders."

"A ghost dragon, whoa. Now I really gotta go!"

"What! No! What part of 'kill all intruders' don't you understand? We'll be eaten!"

"Cool! Let's go!" She cantered off in Ikana's general direction, leaving a disgruntled Shaoran behind wondering where he went wrong.

***astrix astrix astrix***

"Damn it!" A couple hours later they stood on one side of a rushing river. On the other side was a high cliff with the city of Ikana at the very top. "Now how're we supposta get to the top?"

"Well, there's no way we can cross, so I guess we'll hafta go home." Shaoran surmised, pushing her back towards the horses.

Ryin stamped her foot. "No! I didn't come all this way to turn back now." She ran to the side of the river and looked across. "...Think we can jump?"

He stared at her in horror. "We most certainly cannot jump. What if you fell in?" She was silent. "Look how fast the river's moving! Let's just go home."

Her eyes flashed. "No! You're just scared."

"With good reason!"

"I don't believe this dragon exists-it's just a myth! If you're so scared you can leave, but I'm going and you can't stop me."

They stood there, staring each other down. Shaoran sighed. "You are such a stubborn person. There's no way I can win. But I'm going with you."

Ryin smirked "HA! Well let's go then." She started leading the way to the river's edge.

"Wait."

Her eyes flashed again and she spun around, about to berate him for his insolence. Shaoran held up a hand. "I said 'Wait' not 'Stop'. We can jump across, just let me go first." Ryin opened her mouth to protest but he help up his had again to silence her. "No, listen. I have longer legs and can jump further; I have a better chance of making it over. Then I can always catch you if you don't quite make it. And if I don't make it over, then I fall in and swim out. Better than if you fell in."

She looked about to argue but couldn't find a flaw in his logic. "Alright, fine. Go."

He nodded and backed up. Then sped off towards the river. He jumped at the end of the platform and sailed to the next one. His landing was a bit clumsy, but he was alright.

"You okay? How was it?" she called over.

"It was a bit farther than I expected, but you should be able to make it. Watch yourself though, the platforms are pretty slippery."

She nodded, then backed up farther than he did and prepared to run. She stood there, taking deep breaths, preparing herself. Knowing the end could be one slip away. She sighed, then started to run. Across the grass, hair whipping back and forth. Onto the wooden platform, she jumped and everything slowed down. As soon as her foot left the dock she knew something was wrong. That she wasn't going to make it. Her foot had slipped as she left the platform. She soared for what felt like an eternity. The moment her foot touched the deck everything happened all at once. Her foot barely made it to the edge, where she hung for less than a moment eyes and mouth wide before slowly sliding backwards into the water. Shaoran, who'd moved back to give her landing room, launched himself forward, but she knew he wouldn't make it. She'd fall into the water and never be seen again. Drown horribly just like, oh so long ago. The weight of the water crushing down on her. Already her back leg was knee deep in water and she kept falling, arms extended, eyes wide with fear. Then he had her. As soon as they touched everything was in normal time again. No more falling forever. In less than a second he had her pulled out of the water, into his arms, her face pressed tightly into his chest. She started gasping frantically for air, tears rolled down her cheeks. She had only just realised what had nearly happened.

Shaoran stroked her hair gently, trying to calm her down all the while whispering "It's okay Ryin, I have you. Shhhh, it's all right. You'll be okay. I have you now."He kissed the top of her hair.

They stayed like that for a couple minutes while Ryin's crying and gasping subsided. When it did, she pulled back a swallowed nervously. She put on a brave face and said "I'm ready. Let's go."

Shaoran watched her carefully. "You sure? Do you need a minute?"

She shook her head. "I'm fine"

He nodded wearily "We'll find another way across on the way down." She smiled wryly, but didn't say anything.

They both turned and started climbing the narrow steps cut into the rock face behind them. Quite a few times they nearly slipped, but there were no more incidents.

They reached the top and looked around. Rocky emptiness looked back at them. "Just like my parents described from the last time they were here. Deserted."

"Huh."

They set out forward, looking around. There were very few houses, mostly different shades of brown, a handful of dead trees and little tufts of dried up grass here and there. They followed the stream upwards through the village. Following the same route Link and Reena had years ago.

"Oh!" Ryin ran ahead "This'd be the Music Box House" She came to a small, boxish house different from all the others.

"The what?"

"Music Box House. My parents told me about it. They say the river would turn the waterwheel and that would make something in the house play music that'd come out those speakers." She explained pointing to each part in turn. "But nobody approved of it, so it was broken when the rebellion happened."

"Why was-?"

"Ooh!" she interrupted him, running to the edge of the stream. "The palace! Let's go in!"

"Wait no! You can't cross the river, and there's no bridge."

"Relax, it's not that deep." And with that she waded across. Shaoran sighed and went after her.

They came to the doors and entered into a large foyer with huge stone pillars.

"Eerie. It's like they never left." There were still paintings on the wall and other various items, coated in dust.

They moved forward and came to a large door "I wonder what's through here?" Ryin said, pushing it open.

"Do you _ever _stop and think?" Shaoran chided her, but she wasn't listening. She was looking straight forward at the place they'd entered. It was a large garden, open space, area. With green plants and bright colours. They both gasped. Shaoran let out a "wow" and they both moved forward to look around but were instead greeted with a loud, deep roar. "GET OUUUUTTT!" Then a blast of heat enough to singe their eyebrows. They both yelled and half ran, half dragged each other out of the garden, out the palace doors and over the river. They didn't stop until they'd put most of the village and a river between them and the voice.

"So the dragon's a myth is it?" Shaoran angrily panted.

"Shut up." Ryin gaped, she was bent over, hands on her knees, gasping for breath. "I've never run so fast in my life..."

Shaoran looked up to retort again and what he saw made his blood run cold. "Ryin?"

She looked over at him, but before she could, was met with a similar vision. A long and very pointy sword inches away from her face and holding that sword, a fearsome looking garo.

"Intruders are not permitted." It said in a low, commanding voice. "You must die." It made a quick slash at her, which she barely dodged. She scrambled to the side and hauled Shaoran to his feet where he had dived out of the way. They both drew their swords and stood back to back. "If we get out of this I'm going to kill you." Shaoran whispered to her. They were surrounded, 4-1. "Attack." The lead garo said calmly.

They had both killed two each, but sustaining heavy injuries themselves. The fire that appeared with the garos didn't help much either. They were also both still exhausted from the run across town. Finally they were both knocked to the ground, defeated. The lead garo raised his sword above his head, bearing down on Ryin. "You fought valiantly hylian, but the battlefield is not place for a woman." She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the downswing of the sword, her anti-sexism retort burning on her lips. Then she heard a most unusual sound, the clang of metal on metal and a cry of rage from the lead garo. She opened her eyes. The tip of the sword was scarcely a hair away from the end of her nose. She let out a shuddering sigh. But the sword was shaking, like it had been restrained. She looked up the shaft. There was a chain wrapped around the blade, preventing in from cutting her. She followed the chain to its owner. A tall man stood there holding the other end of the whip. He looked about Shaoran's age but more battle hardened. Long black hair, tied into a low, messy ponytail. He wore a long dark gray trench coat, a high-necked white shirt and black pants. Black dragons coiled on the coat's chest. He spoke in a low voice "Now, now. No need to hurt the innocent."

"You." The lead garo hissed. "Get out of here. You're not wanted."

"If I go, they go." He gestured to Ryin and Shaoran.

"Get out of here traitor. We won't warn you again."

"I'm the traitor? I wasn't the one who wiped out an entire nation."

He scowled "You know that's not true. We were hired to wipe out the Royal Family; you'd know that better than anyone." The man grimaced. The garo freed his sword and another appeared from his sleeve. The other garos did the same. "Leave."

The man looked over at the garos' prisoners. He met the girl's eye. She quickly looked away, then looked back. He gave her the smallest of nods, she returned it. She understood. He held her gaze but kept talking. "Well unfortunately we have different perspectives." He freed his sword from his belt and looked at them. "Too bad." At that moment Ryin lashed out with her sword catching the leader in the leg, he staggered. Ryin and Shaoran jumped to their feet swords drawn and began round two, this time with the mysterious stranger on their side.

The garos knew what they were doing; they did everything possible to separate the three of them to give them more openings. Shaoran was cornered by two of them. He managed to hold his own for the first half, but after a shot to the leg began messing up. He dodged a swipe to his neck, but stumbled in the process. He was now fighting two at once down on one knee, no longer trying to win, now just trying to survive. He called out "Ryin!"

She heard him and spun around to see what had happened. The scene wasn't good. Fear for her friend gave her strength; she stabbed her garo in the darkness under his hood, right between his two glowing red eyes. The flashed brightly for a second, then faded to blackness, then it burst into flames. She ran over to Shaoran and tackled the nearest garo. The other turned in shock to see what'd happened, giving Shaoran a chance to get to his feet. Ryin and her new opponent hit the ground and bounced, furiously fighting, a couple feet away. Their swords long forgotten, they were fighting hand to hand.

The stranger had ended up with the leader as an opponent. Their battle was much more sophisticated and calculating. They circled each other, swords drawn. The man had activated a mechanism in his sword to make it split into two. Now they were evenly matched, two for two. Each of them a master swordsman, with two swords, both too smart and weary to make a move. But the man had turned, concentration broken, at the sound of Shaoran's yell. In a flash the leader was on him, sword heading directly for his neck. Luckily, the man's quick reflexes saved him. He moved to the side, seconds before it sliced his neck and his sword slashed forward to cut into the garo's soft flesh. The garo stood there, dying, a sword lodged in his stomach. Although he was a foot from the man, his features were still indistinguishable, but his eyes swam with hatred. "Damn you..." and he burst into flames.

Ryin's sporadic intervention in his fight had given him heart. Now with only one opponent he could easily win. Shaoran quickly finished off his garo and turned to Ryin's battle. The spitting, screeching ball of fighting and hatred had moved. The battle had spanned quite a ways. Both Ryin and the garo still used their hands and feet to fight-neither having had the chance to draw weapons. The stranger walked over to Shaoran as he watched the proceedings. "Does she normally fight like this?"

"Hylians, yes. Monsters, no."

"Ah." They watched as she pushed the garo off her stomach with her feet and staggered to her feet. By now they'd gotten close to the edge of the cliff. Ryin knew this and was about to use it to her advantage. She drew her sword and in her opponent's moment of weakness, slashed at him. Sending him backwards, and over the cliff. She raised her hands in triumph, turning to her audience. She was shocked to find they weren't smiling. Shaoran ran forward, he seemed to know what was about to happen before it did. A chain whipped up from the ravine, wrapping around her leg and pulling her over. The Mater Sword slipped out of her grasp and clattered to the ground. Shaoran launched himself after her, but this time he couldn't catch her in time. Down she went, following the garo, straight into the river. She went under but didn't resurface.

"RYIN!" Shaoran bellowed, running to the edge. He looked over; she was nowhere to be seen. "Ryin!" He shrugged off his coat and prepared to dive.

The man caught him before he could. "No, she'll be fine. There's no sense in both of you getting wet."

Shaoran turned to him in horror "But she-" he looked over the edge "she can't-"

At last Ryin resurfaced, farther down the river, arms flailing and screaming her head off, her eyes wide. "DADDY! MOMMY! HELP! HELP! DEREN! SOMEBODY!" She swallowed more water and went under again.

Shaoran ran down to where she last was "Ryin!" he turned to the man, panicked "she can't swim."

The man paled. "_What!?_" he looked down at Ryin, who'd resurfaced and was screaming and crying again. "I'll get her."

"But-"

He tossed off his jacket "Trust me; I'll get your girlfriend back safely." And he dived into the water.

The water stung. It was moving faster than usual and he nearly got pulled under twice while looking for the girl. But at last he found her. He grabbed her waist and pulled her head above water. He'd expected her to stop screaming and flailing, but it only got worse. He could barely hold on to her, let alone swim to the riverbank. He looked up; Shaoran was following their progress on the cliff. The man yelled to him "I can't get her to you! This river leads to Woodfall I'll meet you there." He whistled. A shadow of an eagle appeared overhead. "Mist! Take this man to Woodfall, I'll be there soon."There was an answering call from the shadow, then the man and Ryin were swept away under the archway into blackness.

***astrix astrix astrix***

Three hours later, they finally arrived in Woodfall. About an hour into their journey Ryin had just stopped moving. She no longer flailed or screamed, she just sat there eyes wide with fear, silently crying. The man looked over Ryin's head at what lay ahead, a short waterfall and a shallow pool at the edge of a stream. He positioned himself so he was between her and the waterfall-he didn't want to risk another panicked beating. She was fine until they went over, but as soon as they hit the water she went into another frenzy, arms and legs kicking and flailing. Her shrill screams rose another octave.

The man sighed and struggled to pull her to shore. After much dragging and kicking and screaming they finally reached the river bank. They both collapsed, half-in, half-out of the water, panting heavily. After awhile Ryin sat up, looking slightly confused. She blinked and looked around.

"Where-where am I?"

The man opened his eyes and rolled his head over to look at her. "What?"

"Where am I? This isn't Ikana..." she looked around "Where's Shaoran?"

He sat up and stared at her, completely bewildered. "Are you kidding? You don't remember _anything_?"

"Well I wouldn't of asked if I knew the answer." She snapped.

He glared at her, angry now. "I just dragged you half way across Termina and you don't remember a thing!"

"Why the hell were you dragging me across the country?!" she looked down "And why'm I soaking wet and lying in a river? What did you do to me?" she demanded

"_Me_? I didn't do anything to you! _I_ saved your life."

"Saved my life. Oh really?" she crossed her arms and glared at him.

The man stood up, she did the same. They glared nose-to-nose at each other, however the man was a foot taller, so he looked down on her. "Yeah, if you hadn't _drowned_ we wouldn't be here." Ryin was silent, so he continued. "You couldn't fight like a normal person could you? You had to go hand to hand and toss yourselves over a cliff. Well it wouldn't be that bad except you _can't swim!_"

Ryin had to bite her tongue to keep from yelling at him during the exchange "I-I can swim."

The man was thunderstruck "You can _what_?"

"Swim."

He stared at her like she'd sprouted another head. "Then why the hell didn't you? You could've killed us both!"

"I just chose not to." She replied simply.

"What?"

"I can swim, I just choose not to."

"Even if it means drowning?"

"Pretty much."

"Well you should've chose to instead of making me waste my time getting beaten over the head and having you scream in my ear for two hours straight!"

"I didn't ask you to save me!"

"Oh _sorry_, sorry that I stopped you from dying..._twice_!" the man shot back, sarcastically.

"I had the garo thing all sorted, as for drowning, Shaoran was going to save me. So I really didn't need your help."

"Well, I'll remember that. Next time you need saving, your boyfriend can do it."

Her face turned beet red and she threw her words at him. Hating his assumption and why this annoying stranger thought he had the authority to make such an assumption. "He. Is. Not. My. BOYFRIEND!"

Before he could retort, there was a loud eagle call and Shaoran himself appeared riding atop a large, golden eagle. He jumped off and ran to Ryin, embracing her. "Are you alright?"

"Fine." She said coolly. A pause. Then said quietly "Shaoran? When I was in the water did I-did I, you know..." The look on his face told her what she needed to know. She grimaced.

Shaoran turned to the man and held out his hand, the man took it. They shook. "Thank you so much for saving her."

"I was fine. I could've taken care of myself." Ryin interrupted.

He waved a hand at her. "Shh, thank you so much for saving both of us, I don't know how I can ever repay you." He gave a short bow.

"No, no. There's no need to repay me. I did what I did without want of a reward."

"Pfft, except to insult and torment me." Ryin piped up again.

"Quiet you," Shaoran glared at her, then turned back to the man. "Can I at least know your name?"

"Horo. Horo Seisora."

"I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance. My name is Shaoran and this," he gestured to Ryin "Is, as I'm sure you heard is Ryin."

Horo turned to her and stuck out a hand, bemused. "Charmed Miss Ryin."She stuck out her tongue at him. He laughed.

Ryin grumbled. Then her eyes widened as she remembered something. She turned to Shaoran, gave a dubious look at Horo, then dropped her voice to a whisper "The Master Sword! I think it might've fallen in the river! I'm doomed! My dad'll kill me!"

He chuckled. "Don't worry we have it."

She looked confused "...We?" He pointed to the giant eagle that had just perched on Horo's out-stretched arm. "What the hell is that thing!? It's huge!"

"It's not an it, she's a she. And her name is Mist. She's a giant eagle."Horo explained. Mist looked up, her intense eyes boring into Ryin.

"Mist brought me over here. And here's your sword." Shaoran explained handing it to her. The exchange was not missed by Horo. His eyes narrowed.

"Oh! Really?" She walked over to Mist, completely ignoring Horo. "Thank you very much for bringing Shaoran over here." Mist clicked her break and bowed her head to nuzzle Ryin's outstretched hand.

Horo eyed her wearily "She likes you."

"Well at least someone does." She sniffed. She turned to Shaoran. "We should go."

"We have no horses."

"Damn. Where are they?"

"Still in Ikana."

"I'll get your horses." Horo interrupted.

They both spun to face him. "Really? How?"

"Mist'll fly you back home while I go back to Ikana and get your horses. I'll deliver them to your houses."

Shaoran opened his mouth to say something but Ryin cut him off. "No way! We don't need _your _help."

Shaoran covered her mouth. "Shhh, he's offering to help us." He turned to Horo "Thank you so much, but you don't know where we live."

"Oh, I'm sure I'll find it."

"You creepy stalker! Just you wait I'll-"

Shaoran dragged her away "Thank you again, for everything." Mist swooped down and they both loaded onto her, Ryin still screaming profanities at him.

"Your horses will be back in your stables first thing tomorrow morning." He called after them as Mist took off.

***astrix astrix astrix***

The sun poured in through a crack in the curtains. Ryin rolled over, pulling a pillow on over top of her head. She sat up immediately when she remembered. Yesterday's actions replayed in her head. When she had arrived home, her parents gave her a longer lecture than any given Sir Lethan speech and forbidden her from even using the Master Sword ever again. At least they hadn't found out her true destination or that she'd nearly drowned.

She ran out of her room, still in her pyjamas and raced outside to the stables. This was the moment she'd waited for. When she could prove that that jerk Horo was not to be trusted because there was no way he could go all the way back to Ikana and back to the castle in less than 24 hours. _And_ find out where they both lived. She rounded the corner and stopped in horror. There sat her horse eating hay, like nothing had ever happened.

She stared at her horse and placed a hand on its side. It was alright. "Impossible..." Ryin looked around. She could've sworn she'd heard someone laugh.

**Ryin took after her mother in the swimming aspect of life. Yeah, Sir Lethan still exists in this world. And ooooh Horo the mysterious, broody figure who's shrouded in mystery. Anyways, you can see, right off the bat what kind of person Ryin'll be, especially with new people. She'll get better later. Review please? See ya next chapter!...whenever that is...**


	3. 2 The Queen Ascends

**Chapter two. Yaaay an update. This is surprisingly agonizing to write. GAH! Well, we learn why Ryin is such an annoyingly bad tempered child and some key plot points and story background. Does anyone know what the oposite of a siren is? Because the only thing I could come up with is kinda weird... Whelp. Here's chapter two, enjoy!**

_**Chapter Two: The Queen Ascends**_

It had started out as such a lovely day. The sun, bright and happy, blessed the land of the goddesses with its glow. Birds flew around the castle treating its occupants to beautiful music. Everything calm and serene. But that was earlier. Now, Hyrule market was is total chaos. People screaming and running aimlessly. The only two who had purpose and direction to their run were Ryin and Deren, both running the opposite direction of the crowd-towards the danger.

"And today was going to be such a nice day."

"Obviously you didn't hear about the change in the lineup." Ryin shook her head. "We were supposed to change lessons with the younger siblings. Meaning we get lessons today and they get them tomorrow. Be happy there's turmoil."

"What? Arg! No wonder mum hated dad for leaving her at the castle to deal with trouble. Chaos is way more interesting than dead kings."

"Well that and she was left with a psychotic maniac hell-bent on marrying her and destroying the world." They rounded the corner to the draw bridge. It was closed.

"Let us through." Ryin told the guard.

"I'm sorry miss, but it's too dangerous for you out there."

This got her mad. "Dangerous!? _DANGEROUS!? _Do you have any idea who I am!? I'm the freaking princess! Ryin Teris! _The_ Ryin Teris. Link and Reena's daughter. I can run circles around you and your guards! I can beat this thing blindfolded if I wanted to! You have no right to belittle my gender you-"

"Yeah, yeah Ryin. He's an evil chauvinistic pig, we know. Now will you let us pass or she'll just keep going until you do." Deren explained in a bored tone.

The guard looked unsure, but let them through anyways. Once outside they finally got a look of what was attacking the city. As soon as they left the city gates they were suddenly pelted by freezing rain and hail. The sky was pitch black and the wind screamed.

"What the hell is that thing!?" Ryin screamed over the howling winds.

"Well, going off of dad's many stories and judging by the excessive rain, dark, forboding clouds, hail and the fact we're about to get struck by lightning, I'd say this is a storm demon."

"Fantastic. Any idea how to beat one these? I don't remember."

"Great. I was relying on your perfect memory to get us through this. I remember something about the eye of the storm being the calmest part, so that's probably the weakest point."

Ryin nodded. "Mm so I think the means we need a bow... do you by any chance have one with you?"

Deren laughed. "Nope. You?"

"Nope."

"Well we can improvise then."

"How?"

"Hack 'em to pieces."

"Using a mum and dad strategy now, are we?"

"Well it worked for them" Deren said indifferently.

"Well it won't work or us. How're we supposed to hack a storm to pieces? I'm telling you, we need a bow."

"We should've-" he was interrupted by a bolt of lightning in their general direction. They dove out of the way. "We should've planned ahead."

"GAH! Well why don't you go back to the castle and grab one?" The look on his face told her that wasn't the case. "Or...you could at least go fetch one from the market."

"No way!"

"I'm the oldest, and since mum and dad're gone I'm in charge. So I say you-"

"You know if you need a bow, all you have to do is ask." Called a familiar voice from above them.

They both spun around. Ryin groaned at what she saw. Horo sat atop one of the pillars supporting the drawbridge. He looked down on them. "Cripes not you! Go away. We don't need your help."

He slid down and landed at her side. "But you do need my bow."

She crossed her arms "I don't need _your_ bow, I need _a_ bow. Anyone's but yours."

"Ryin! We need a bow, stop arguing with your friend and-"

They both turned and yelled at him "WE ARE NOT FRIENDS!"

"Whatever! We need his bow! If you're too stubborn to ask for it then I will!" he turned to Horo. "Please don't listen to my stupid and rude sister. We need a bow-can we borrow yours?"

"Sure," he handed him the bow "knock yourself out."

"Give me that!" Ryin snarled, snatching away the bow away from her brother. "You're a horrible shot."

Ryin stomped away with the bow. The boys watched her go. "...Or you could knock her out." Horo said and Deren laughed.

Ryin moved closer to the swirling mass of clouds and lightning. She took aim right at the center and fired. The arrow shot directly at it and disappeared. There was a loud clap of thunder and the clouds started swirling faster and the wind blasted them. Then it went back to normal, the sudden surge finished. Ryin turned and laughed at the boys. Deren's eyes widened and he pointed behind her. She turned in time to see her arrow illuminated by a bolt of lightning, speeding towards her. She gasped but didn't have time to move. Seconds before it hit Horo smashed into her and they both rolled out of the way. She glared up at him "What did I tell you about saving my life?" she demanded.

"But your boyfriend's not here to save you. If he's not here to save you and you won't let me save you, then who will? You seem to be accident prone." He said, offering a hand to help her up.

She ignored it and stood up by herself "Again. He's not my boyfriend, and never will be."

"Who? Shaoran?" Horo laughed and Ryin flushed with rage.

"Deren!"

He shrugged "What? The way you two act and talk to each other, it's so obvious you're together, or are madly in love with each other. Don't try to hide it. Everyone knows the truth. Even Horo does."

"It is pretty obvious. The way you cling to each other, and how worried he got when you fell in the water."

"What? You fell in the water? When was this!? Do mum and dad know?"

Ryin glared at Horo with pure hatred in her eyes "Can we please just focus on this thing? I'm fine and that's all that matters. This thing is kind of important. Arrows didn't work."

Horo laughed "Of course they didn't! Where did you get an idea like that?"

"What!?"

"Yeah. You can't beat this kind of storm demon with arrows. It's way more complicated than that!"

"Well you could've told us that when you gave it to us!"

"I didn't know that's what you wanted it for." Horo replied nonchalantly, shrugging.

Ryin looked about to hit him. She opened her mouth to yell at him but Deren stopped her before she could say anything. "If you know how, could you help us?"

He shot a look at Ryin who sat there fuming "Yeah, I could help you. It's no trouble." Ryin made a strange gurgling sound at the back of her throat that sounded like a mix between a hacking cough and swear. Horo only smirked. "Right. We need to get into the eye of the storm. That's where the demon itself is."

"Gee thanks Horo, we sure didn't know that!" Ryin said sarcastically.

Deren shot her a look "Well we didn't! So shut up!" he countered. Ryin only grumbled in response.

Horo ignored both of them and thought. "Ryin, I need your sword."

"Use your own damn sword!"

"I can't-it has to be a sword with significant power."

"Well don't look at mine! Mine is lame!"

He looked over and sure enough it was just a plain, regular old sword. "What happened to the Master Sword?"

"My dad has it. It is his sword after all. How did you-"

"I saw it when Shaoran returned it to you. Damnit! Now what?" He sat there thinking. He knew the answer, but it wasn't one he'd be too pleased with. It'd mean showing off too much of his power-not a pleasing thought, especially in front of these two strangers. But it seemed to be the only solution. "How close can we get before we're blown back?"

"We've never gotten close enough to experience it-we get in about fifteen-twenty feet from right here and we're buffeted by too much hail to get any closer." Deren reported.

"Damn." That'd mean that he'd still have to exert quite a bit of power to break the ring of storms. "Alright, let's get that close and I'll revaluate."

"Who died and made you king?"

Horo stiffened "I just happen to have a plan is all." He replied stiffly.

They did what he said. Moving slowly and cautiously forward until advance was nearly impossible. They were all frozen, what with being blasted by freezing rain, hail and snow and getting chilled to the bone by icy wind. Both Ryin and Deren's teeth chattered. "W-what n-now o f-fearle-less-s l-leader?"

Horo took position, bracing himself with his sword out in front of him. "Both of you grab my shoulders. I need you to focus all your power into me to make this work."

"P-power? W-we d-d-don't have any p-power."

"You mean to say that both your parents are Triforce holders and you have no power? Especially with Reena as your mother. I'm having a hard time believing that!"

"It's-s our s-sister Melly who h-has all the p-power, we h-have none." Ryin explained rubbing her arms and jumping from foot to foot to stay warm. Deren nodded.

Horo sighed. "Everyone has power, especially if you have a history of it in your family. Not everyone can use their power however. But if you focus it towards me, I should be able to use it to our advantage."

Ryin and Deren looked at each other "What do we have to lose?" Deren asked placing his hands on Horo's arm.

"My pride." Ryin grumbled but placed her hands on his arm none the less. But pulled them away as if she'd been burned. In fact that was almost the case. She stared at his arm in shock. _What the hell...? He's flaming hot! _Despite it being freezing out Horo was still several degrees above normal body temperature. _Is that why his teeth aren't chattering? How is this even possible?_

Horo looked at her. "Well?" She gave him a strange look but placed her hands on him anyways.

He charged his energy into his sword. The joining part of his sword's vertical and horizontal blades glowed blue as energy was charged. Then with one mighty swing and a bellow he unleashed the energy in a large blast that carved its way through the ground and broke the solid wall of clouds and rain. "Quick, inside!" They all ran forward, the wind and rain continued whipping at their sides, but the way ahead was clear. They made it through into the eye seconds before the outer wall closed up behind them.

Now they were in the eye of the tornado. The safest part-so they thought. "Look!" Ryin pointed. There was a girl standing there, facing the opposite direction. Long blond hair cascaded down her back. She wore a fancy dark green and blue gown with gold accents. Even from behind she was strikingly beautiful. However she still didn't seem to have noticed them.

"A girl..." Deren said slowly "Did she get stuck in here?" He started towards her.

"NO!" Horo launched himself at Deren and pulled him away. He covered both their faces. The girl turned at the sound of his yell. From the front she was significantly less beautiful. Her skin was pale gray colour and her eyes were a bright bloody red colour. But make no mistake, she was breath-taking. She regarded the struggling boys with a mild interest.

"What?" Deren growled indignantly.

"If you look her in the face you'll be under her control and be a mindless slave."

"I wouldn't mind being _her_ mindless-" he shut up when he saw Horo's look.

"HEY!" The boys looked up at Ryin who glared at them, hands on hips. "What the hell in this about? I know I've been a jerk to you Horo but that doesn't mean you can just leave me to become a mindslave!"

"What?"

"You stopped Deren from looking at her, how come I'm not being protected?... Not that I want to be of course." She looked at the girl, then back at them. "Come to think of it, why aren't I mindlessly doing her biding?"

Horo sighed and rolled his eyes "Because it only works on men. She's taking the form of a siren, so men instantly fall in love with her. However if she took the form of a man-whore..."

"I hate you so much."

"Take the form of? What do you mean?" Deren intervened.

"Storm Demons aren't just a whirling mass of wind and rain-they have a demon at their heart. It can take the shape of whatever it wants. Normally something that'll either terrify or incapacitate its victims. Honestly, and you say your parents are heroes?"

"There are more than one type of storm demon. Our parents just constantly fight the other type-the type native to Termina. The kind that doesn't have a shape shifting demon at its core."

"Anyways, ignoring Ryin, how're supposed to defeat something that 2 out of 3 of us can't lay eyes on?"

Horo turned to Ryin and smiled, then said sweetly "Ryin, you're a strong and independent girl. Would you mind-"

"No. Why should I help you out?"

"Because if you don't then we're all dead. And make sure you watch out for-"

A soft melodious voice interrupted him "Horo. Deren."

They both stiffened as if shocked and robotically turned to face the voice. Ryin gaped at them in horror and did a running jump at them, that made the taller boys bend painfully over, but kept their faces covered. "What do you think you're doing?" she hissed at them.

"Get the hell of me Ryin!" Deren tried to push her away.

The demon spoke again. "Pay no attention to her. Come here."

"Yes Lady." The boys repeated in a monotone voice. They both attempted to struggle free from Ryin's iron grasp. She held tight until she got a sharp elbow to the face from Horo. She reeled back clutching her bloody nose as they made their way over to the demon.

The demon smiled, revealing long fangs. "Excellent." The boys stopped in front of her. She turned to Horo and stroked his face gently. "My dear Horo, you know I love you right?"

He nodded slowly. "Yes Lady."

"Good," her face grew serious "but I worry that you don't feel the same way."

His dreamy look turned to one of shock. "Oh course I do! I have never felt this way about anyone else before in my life."

"Really? Well I'd like you to prove it to me."

Before he could respond he was interrupted by Deren "No Lady! Let me, let me prove my love for you."

"No Deren, this is Horo's task."

"But Lady-"

"I said NO!" She snapped her head at him, eyes blazing red, teeth bared. He stumbled back in shock. "Now," she turned back to Horo. "I would like you to kill Ryin. Such a small task to prove your love I know." Horo nodded and turned towards Ryin, gripping his sword.

Ryin retreated a few steps as he made his way over to her. "H-Horo? I know we were never really friends, but you can't do this."

"I must prove my love." He still spoke in the same monotonous, emotionless voice. He slashed at her so fast she could barely dodge. He was aiming for her neck.

"Horo!" Another slash, this time she met it with her own sword. And so the battle began. Each of them prowled and circled around the other, looking for an opening. They slashed and hacked at each other. Horo aiming to kill, Ryin aiming to maim. They danced around making low passes and high swings. Each sweating heavily. Horo jumped at her; luckily she blocked it just in time. They sprang apart and regarded each other for a moment, then they sprang. They ended up switching places. At first there didn't seem to be any damage, then Horo's cheek began to drip. Ryin smirked. She moved forward to finish him off in his moment of confusion, but ended up staggering. Gasping in pain, she fell to one knee. She looked at her leg, a long gash ran along it. The wound oozed blood. She grit her teeth and rose to her feet, wobbling slightly. She closed her eyes for a second to catch her balance, when she opened them again Horo was inches from her face, sword poised to kill. It was the end, she knew it. Ryin shut her eyes and waited for the blow.

It never came.

Instead she heard Horo's voice close to her ear. "When I hit you shut up and play dead."

Her eyes widened "Wha-?" Then the blow came. It sliced across her shoulder and carved its way down her chest. She gasped in pain and fell back.

Ryin hit the ground hard, the need to cry out in pain for help was overwhelming but Horo had told her to shut up. She listened because he obviously had a plan. And obviously wasn't hypnotised. What on earth was going on?

Horo turned back to the demon. "It is done Lady."

She clapped her hands and squealed in apparent joy. "Excellent!" She walked over to him and took his face between her hands. He wrapped his arms around her waist. "I knew you loved me Horo. And I love you too, more than anything. More than Deren." They both looked over at Deren who was watching their every move, looking thoroughly heartbroken. "Horo? I don't like him anymore. Will you kill him for me? Please?" She buried her face in his chest.

Horo looked down at her "I'm sorry Lady, I can't do that."

She looked up, confused "Why not?" She was answered by the sound of her own gagging. She looked back to see a dagger clenched in Horo's hand, deeply buried in her back. She turned to face him, blood leaking out her mouth. "How-?"

"I've battled enough storm demons to know your tricks-and how to act possessed."

She flinched, the dagger causing her obvious pain. "Ah…" He extracted it, the demon convulsed, then fell back. Dead. The clouds lifted and the sun shone down on them.

Deren looked like he just woke from a deep sleep. "What-? Where did the demon go?" he saw Ryin's prone and bloody form. "Ryin!"

She tilted her head back and opened her eyes so she could see him. "I'm good, don't worry."

Horo made his way over to her and held out a hand, this time she didn't refuse. "Sorry, I had to make it look believable."

She waved it off casually. "No problem. You could've however told me your plan."

"When was I going to do that? I didn't know what form she'd be in beforehand and I was supposed to be possessed afterwards."

"Use your mindspeak; telepathically tell me your plan. I am convinced that you're able to talk to people using your mind."

"Why? Where did this assumption come from?"

"From the recesses of my own mind, duh. You just seem like the type." Horo shifted around, slightly agitated. "Anyways, I can understand why you didn't tell me-because you didn't want anyone to know your secret-but you could've at least not nearly cut me in half. I mean really! All you had to do was say 'act dead' and injure me enough to bleed. Really, I could've died and it would've been all your fault." They started heading back to the castle. "You nearly killed the next queen of Hyrule, then we would've been just as screwed up as Termina. I hope you're happy, you sadistically violent bastard."

Horo sighed. "You know, you're the only person I know who can turn your life and city being saved into a bad thing. Everything is always my fault, isn't it?"

"Pretty much."

He sighed. "Will I ever earn your trust?"

"Keep saving my life without permission, and no." He only sighed.

***astrix astrix astrix* **

Later, Horo and Deren sat in the study sipping tea and recounting their heroic story for the rest of the siblings who listened intently to their brother and his mysterious friend. "It felt almost sacrilegious to kill a something as beautiful as her, but I suppose it was for the best. Luckily Horo knew how to beat her-er, it."

"It was just lots of practice."

"Wow, Horo, you must be a demon expert then, hm?" Melly asked.

"Well, not re-"

Ryin walked in, newly patched up and drying her wet hair with a towel. "Has anyone one seen my-oh, _you're_ still here, are you?" She looked down on Horo with distain. "I thought you'd-what do you think you're _doing_? Get away from them!" She screeched.

He looked at her, slightly confused. "Wha-? What did I do wrong this time?"

"My brothers and sisters! Get away from them!" She turned and glared at them. "Don't you know anything? You don't invite strangers into your home!"

"But Ryin, we were just-"

"_NO_." She looked back at Horo with disgust, which then turned to rage as her eyes traveled downwards. Down to his lap where Terk, who'd been resting there looked up at her apologetically. "You too Terk? Bastard." She pointed at Horo. "You may have won over my friends and family, but that's all the more reason for me to hate you. I can see right through you." And with that, she stormed off. Terk jumped down from the couch and followed, tail between his legs.

Carei bit her lip. "I'm sorry about that, but she can have quite a temper-she gets it from our mother. But she doesn't mean it, she just has a hard time trusting new people."

Horo was still looking at the place where she'd disappeared moments before. "No, no, it's fine-if you'll excuse me for a moment." He stood up and followed her out the door.

They watched him leave. "What a foolish man, thinking he can follow her into the gardens." Nia sneered.

"Nonsense, I bet he'll have a better chance of finding his way around than Ryin, what with being directionally challenged and all." Nera replied.

***astrix astrix astrix***

Ryin sat under her favorite tree, tearing up grass in a huff, brooding about the day's events. Terk lay beside her, almost as if to make up for his blunder earlier. She grumbled to herself. A branch snapped nearby. Her head shot up in alarm, but lowered again when she saw who it was. "Come to add injury to insult? Oh wait, you've already done that."

He sighed "May I sit?"

"Why ask for permission? You didn't last time."

He sighed again, but sat anyways. He watched her terrorize the grass. "I can't figure you out, know that?"

"Good. At least I have one thing you can't intrude on."

"Why do you hate me so much?"

"You intrude on my life. You save me without permission. You win over my friends, family and wolfos. Also there's something about you that I just can't place. Something I don't trust. You're hiding something."

He chose his next words carefully. "Everyone has secrets, and my secrets aren't something I like to share, especially with someone who hates me."

"Whatever."

"Can I do anything to make you hate me less?"

"No."

He thought for a moment. "You seemed to hate me less after today's battle."

"I was just happy to of beaten it."

"You seem to hate me less during battle."

"Good theory, lets battle it out right now. When you're dead you can't talk, therefore you can't annoy me, meaning I won't hate you as much. See? A win-win situation."

He looked at her disapprovingly. "Let's act our age, shall we? I also don't think 'the next queen of Hyrule' should be talking about killing people."

"Why? Mum and Auntie Lera did and now they're both in charge."

"You sound like a little kid when you talk." She stuck her tongue out at him. He shook his head. "I changed my mind, you _are _a little kid, trapped in a teenager's body. How old are you again?"

"Sixteen. Seventeen in a week an' a half."

"You _are_ young. I'm already eighteen."

"I'm not young-you're just old. Eh, I guess that means you'll die first-no big loss."

"I thought the way you insulted me was just a reflex, but I realize now that it's an art." She smirked at him but said nothing.

Silence.

There was a shout from the castle. "Ryyyyiiiin! If you can find your way back, you're needed in the throne room."

She stood up mechanically and walked away without saying anything. Horo followed with apparent interest. They made their way through the gardens and up into the castle. When they arrived Deren handed her a stack of papers to look over. She grumbled to herself as she went through them, pacing. "Oh and there's been a pack of wolfos giving the kokiri trouble."

"Of course there is," she sighed "must be Wednesday. I'll head out in a couple hours-I still have to deal with this problem." She waved the papers. "I'll be in the study."

"What's up? What kind of problem? Anything I can help-"

"No. And it's none of your business, so go away and leave me alone." She interrupted Horo with a flick of the wrist, motioning to the door.

"Why don't you deal with that problem while I go help out the kokiri?"

"No. Now go away. I'm really busy right now and don't have time for your incessant meddling. These are my problems that I will fix myself."

"Look, I'm only trying to help, you don't have to jump down my throat every time I offer."

Ryin spun around to face him, positively livid. "Did I ask for your help? Why do you always find it necessary to help me when I very clearly do not want or need it? So leave me alone and let me solve my own damn problems. Besides, even if I wanted your help, you still couldn't help me. They're ruling problems-which is something, I'm sure, you know nothing about. I'm under more stress than you could imagine, so I don't have time to deal with the likes of you, goodbye." And with that she stomped off in the direction of the study.

Horo stared at her, flabbergasted for a second, then took off, catching her arm and making her look at him. "I've had just about enough of your annoying whining. I know you hate me, nor do you trust me, but that doesn't give you the right to be constantly rude and insulting to me. All that stress you have is mostly caused by the high blood pressure you get from yelling at me constantly. "

She yanked her arm free from him, glaring. "No, your unwarranted appearances are a major cause of my stress. That and all the stuff I have to deal with. The stuff that useless people like you would have no knowledge of, royalty stuff. Being a royal isn't all glamour you know."

"I know."

"No, you don't. You have no idea what I go through-and I'm not even supposed to be doing any of this stuff!"

"Oh really, like what?"

"Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time Princess Zelda gave up the throne so she could live with her husband and children far away from the castle. Her sister Princess Lera was going to take over after her and her husband had a child who was old enough to take over Salderin in their absence. Meanwhile the king and queen continued ruling. Princes Lera thought she had enough time, so her and Prince Kasten took their time getting married and having children. But then the king and queen died suddenly. So Princess Zelda had to come back to throne with her children in tow. A year or so later Ikana decided that it would be a god idea to drop off the face of the earth and leave the rest of the country in shambles. Termina gets automatically ruled by Hyrule in this case. However, Princess Zelda and the Hero of Time can't rule either country because their trying to end the rebellion in Termina. So while Prince Carter is still too young to take over and the only way to get from Salderin to Hyrule is through Termina-which is blocked off-therefore the task of ruling falls upon Princess Zelda's oldest daughter-that's me. Meaning I have to cover for both my parents. Cover for my mum by ruling two countries and for my dad by beating all the demons and monsters that threaten the country. There's also the possibility that this might become my full time job, because there is a large possibility that they could both die in the war. Let me tell you, that's pretty stressful to think about. Add all that to the random crap I have to put up with in the castle, such as stupid pointless lessons with the ancient Sir Lethan plus my duties as the big sister-I have to take care of my siblings. My only time off is when my parents make one of their rare appearances. So you randomly showing up all the time is causing me major issues. I don't have the time or patience to deal with you, so I would appreciate it if you just left me alone. I have way too much to deal with, I have the weight of two countries on my shoulders and I'm not even seventeen yet. You can stay here tonight if you want but please leave in the morning-that would be best."

Horo was speechless; he had no idea how one girl at such a young age could deal with that much. "Ryin," he started gently "I'm only trying to help. I want to make this easier for you. You don't deserve to have the weight of the world on your shoulders. I'll help you, if you want, but if you want me gone, well, then I'll leave you alone. That's fair enough."

She was silent for a moment. "What, are you stupid?" she cracked a grin "Did you really think I'd ever accept your help?"

He laughed. "You're too stubborn for your own good, know that? One day you'll be begging for my help."

"One day Horo, one day. Until then, get out of my sight."

He laughed and head up to his room.

**Yeah, I hope Hyrule's past wasn't two vague for you, but in short, Ryin is queen while Reena helps in Termina because their royaly family died. Another note: basically Ryin has a photographic memory and can remember anything and eveything people tell her, such asLink and Reena telling stories about beating demons. This'll come in handy later on, probably. As will Ryin's annoying habit of making things seem so much worse than they are. Oh yeah! Two types of storm demons, obviously. One, basically wind, rain, lightning, hail ect ect The ones Link always had to deal with. Then there's this one, with a demon at it's center. That...well...you read the chapter, you know what it does. GAH! I'm so tired, my school work is piling up and these extra shifts at work are getting to me. Why do I take so many extra shifts!? ****Because the guy I work with is hot, that's why. I'm pathetic... *sigh* Who knows when the next chapter'll be up, fingers crossed it'll be sometime soon. Maybe a review will make it be done sooner... *hint, hint***


	4. 3 Demonic Activity

**Yay chapter 3! I started writing for the next chapter, then stopped because I was unmotivated, then started up again after awhile, then I got excited because I thought I was done an entire chapter. But no, it was only about 1300 words. GAH! Okay, here's chapter three.**

**Oh right! I have yet again been exceedingly forgettful, I do not own legend of zelda, nor will I ever so please dont sue. I keep forgetting to put diclaimers on my capters, just like Hidden Truths. So, I shall (again, just like Hidden Truths) have this be the disclaimer for this chapter, the previous chapters and all future chapters, because if I don't do it now, I never will.**

_**Chapter Three: Demonic Activity**_

"Out! Out! Everyone out now!" Chaos in the castle. "Deren! Hurry up and get everyone away from here, then come back and help me out!" As per usual, Ryin was the one heading towards the danger while everyone else was scrambling to go the other direction. It was the next day, the day after the storm demon attack. This was a new record for the 'dangerously close to the castle' category. This time it was an enormous bird with razor sharp talons and beak. Normally, it would be easy to dispatch but each wing beat caused a gale to sweep the area, that and it could breathe fire. It hovered above the grounds between the castle and the gate. Ryin appeared below it and looked up. "Now what?" She tried throwing stones at it to get its attention, but it paid her-or her stones-no heed.

Suddenly there was a cry off to the side, right where the bird was terrorizing. Ryin's blood ran cold, she knew that scream. She ran towards it, hoping that if she was in front of it she could divert it's attention away from Carei long enough for her to escape. Unfortunately, the demon turned its attention towards her right as she arrived to save her sister. It obviously didn't want her anywhere near its prey and set about trying to dispatch her.

"Ryin! Ryin! Help!"

"I've got you Carei!" She ducked and rolled away from the bird, weaving between the trees in order to find the safest route to her sister. _Almost there. Almost... Almost... _She had her hand outstretched to grab her, but got blindsided by the beast's tail that made a surprise appearance, whaling her in the side. "AHHHH!" she flew into the trees and hit her back painfully on one of the thicker ones. Obviously, the only way the save Carei was to kill the bird. A feat that wouldn't be easy, especially since Deren had her bow.

She doubled back hoping to keep it occupied until Deren reappeared. She came around the side and called to it, jumping up and down and waving her arms. "Hey you big cucco! Leave her alone! Come eat me instead!" It paid her no heed, merely swinging its tail in her direction. She dodged it easily. The beast sent a huge fire blast at the rock where Carei was hiding. It exploded. Carei screamed. It swooped down to swallow her up. Ryin's muted scream as she helplessly watched her sister get eaten. Seconds before its jaws snapped shut a shadow appeared out of nowhere and tackled her out of the way. They rolled away and into the trees. The beast let out a bellow as the easiest prey it had ever preyed upon escaped so easily. It turned its gaze on the next closest thing-Ryin.

"Crap." She took off through the trees. A fireball exploded just beside her and she was tossed like a ragdoll. It bore down on her, seething. She closed her eyes and waited for the end.

"Ryin! Use this!" her eyes snapped open at the familiar and until recently, unwelcome voice. Horo threw his bow at her; it skimmed the ground and landed a few feet away. She rolled away just as the bird swooped down on her. She snatched up the bow just as it crashed into the ground where she had been moments before. She fired an arrow directly at its eye. It howled and screamed but came crashing to the ground. Ryin ran to it and buried her sword in its head. It let out one last high pitched shriek and died.

Horo and Carei came running over to her as she pulled her sword out of its head. "Ryin!" Carei ran to her sister, with tears in her eyes.

Ryin bent down so she could return the hug. They embraced tightly for a minute before Ryin pulled away to examine her for wounds. "Are you okay?"

"She has some burns, but she'll be okay." Ryin looked up, Horo was standing some distance away, not wanting to intrude on the sisters' moment or suffer the wrath of Ryin.

Ryin stood up and walked to him. He watched her wearily. He would never forget what happened next for a million years. She hugged him. Ryin walked right up and threw her arms around him. "R-Ryin?"

"You saved my sister, there's no way I could possibly repay you." She let him go, then blushed. "Uh, sorry about that. I'm um, sorry for being the biggest jerk in the history of history and um, I'm sorry for being mean to you. I no longer hate you...as much. And um, I would be very happy if you would accept my apology. If you don't, then that's okay too." Silence. "Um, I feel like a loser, a really awkward loser, I'm just gonna leave..." She turned and walked hurriedly away.

"Ryin!" she stopped but didn't turn around "I accept your apology. Looks like you needed my help after all, eh?"

"Shut up." Then her and Carei went away to rejoin the rest of the family.

***astrix astrix astrix***

From that point onwards Ryin made a point to lower the level and amount of insults she threw at Horo. It took quite a large amount of self restraint to do so. More than anyone could imagine. However now they were somewhat friends. They bonded over the fighting of the near constant wave of monsters who attacked Castle Town. In fact Horo was staying at the castle fulltime now, because the rate of attacks was way up and Ryin needed all the help she could get. Plus the fact that she wanted to do everything possible to apologize for her attitude and repay him for saving her sister.

"ARG! What a day!" Ryin sighed, exhausted. She sank into her usual chair in the study.

Horo collapsed on the sofa across from her. "If I had known Hyrule was going to be the center for demon activity I would've moved here long ago."

"It hasn't really been demon central until recently." Melly commented, not looking up from her book.

"So you mean all this demon activity _isn't_ normal?"

"No. You see? _This_ is why I'm so stressed out. I'm having mixed emotions about all this. You being here is making me more agitated, so are the extremely difficult measures I have to take so as to not insult you. Really, I think not insulting you is giving me more stress than insulting you. However you are helping me beat the constant flow of monsters quickly, easily and effectively. I also haven't gotten hurt as much as I normally would have." Ryin explained in a thoughtful voice.

"So, I'm preventing your physical injuries, but in return am supplying you with excellent mental injuries."

"Pretty much."

"Perfect. Those are the best kind."

Ryin scowled at him but instead turned her attention to Melly. "Heard about any new demons lately?"

"Nope. You're in the clear for now. There hasn't even been any reports about demons moving towards us."

"Strange. Maybe whoever's behind this is planning something big and are focussing all their resources on that." Ryin speculated.

"Maybe." But she sounded unconvinced.

"Well whatever," She stood up and stretched "If you need me I'll be at Shaoran's. I feel like I've been neglecting him ever since we came back from our voyage. Although he probably hasn't noticed. He's probably glad to've had some quiet time."

"Have fun at your boyfriend's house." Horo smirked, waving as she left.

"Ha ha. Oh yeah, _loads_ of fun."

She left the castle and headed down through the market. Taking detours around the more crowded streets and headed out towards the outskirts. Normally she would encounter some unusual person or event going on as she passed, but today there was nothing special. Most likely due to the multitude of recent demon scares. The only thing she found remotely unusual was a young man who met her eyes steadily and wouldn't take his eyes of her. It was odd, she thought, but nothing major to worry about. But still unnerving. The intensity that he looked at her with. The slightly puzzled, slightly hostile gaze. She wouldn't forget him.

Besides that, it was a pretty eventless day. She had sat in Shaoran's kitchen animatedly recounting her epic battles with the more recent monsters while drinking coffee and eating bread. Shaoran had seemed shocked when she told him about her and Horo's new found friendship.

"Really? But I thought you hated him...with a passion!"

She sipped her coffee. "I did." A pause. "I do. But not as much anymore, he saved my sister's life, something that I should've done, but couldn't. I owe him for that. He's also pretty handy to have around when monsters strike."

"I thought Deren was your 'go-to' person for demon attacks."

"He was, but we'd always end up getting injuries of some sort. I don't get injured as much with Horo watching my back... Except when we battled that storm demon. Then it was Horo himself that injured me. A horrible one at that."

"What about me?"

She looked confused. "What about you?"

"You'd always get injured in battle then come see me to get patched up. Are you saying that I'll hardly get to see you anymore?"

She shifted uncomfortably. It was true that she hardly saw Shaoran anymore, being too preoccupied with demons and other royalty problems. "I'll still stop by the say hi, but you're always busy with work and never have time for me anyways. I don't wanna show up half eviscerated and have to wait around while you come in from the fields."

His face fell. "I suppose you're right. How did you manage to get away now?"

"I walked out the front door. No, there wasn't anything going on today. We beat up a load of skeletons today that were headed to Kakariko Village. We just got back. It wasn't too difficult but it was time consuming. There doesn't appear to be another attack anytime soon, so I took a break."

He laughed. "Aren't you supposed to do lessons during down time?"

She cracked a grin. "Yeah, so?"

"Just asking."

Silence. They considered each other for a moment before Shaoran leaned over and took her face in his hand.

She blushed. "W-what are you doing?"

He turned her face to the side and got closer to her. His breath splashed over her face. She really hated when he did that, it dulled even her sharp mind and lowered even her impenetrable defences. She took a moment to drink in his sweet smell before asking again. "What's wrong?"

He touched a spot just above her temple. She flinched, it was tender. "You're hurt."

She waved a hand. "I'll live."

He stood up, grabbed a cloth and wet it in the sink. He came back over and pressed it against the wound. She inhaled sharply. He gently cleaned away the dried blood. "Better?"

"I barely noticed it was there, but thanks."

"Well if you're not going to come around as often, I might as well take care of you as often as I can." She smiled. "You're still too young after all."

"GAH! What is with you people! I'm not _that_ young. I just turned seventeen for Din's sake! You people are just old. Seriously you sound just like Horo. He makes fun of me for being young just like you." she thought for a moment. "You should go make fun of him-he's younger than you."

Shaoran put up a mask to hide his feelings. "Oh yeah? I thought he was older."

"Nah. He just looks old."

"Ah."

Silence. This time a much more awkward one.

"Well...I should get back to work. I took enough of a break."

"Fine. Have it your way."

They both got up and hugged, which Ryin couldn't help but notice lasted longer than usual, then when their separate ways.

***astrix astrix astrix***

"Ryin, wake up."

"Go away." She grumbled, flipping over in bed. She was obviously still asleep and at no point had she actually heard him say anything. It was just a defensive sleep-talking mechanism her body was equipped with. In fact it was a well known act that she could and would talk to the waker as if she was really about to get up, but really still be fast asleep. An hour later when she was checked on she'd still be sound asleep. The only way to effectively wake her up was to shake her, and even then that was probably one of the more dangerous things to do. She had inherited Reena's tenancies towards violence when roused from her sleep. Horo's situation was a lose-lose one.

He sighed. "Of all days." Then to her he said "RYIN! WAKE UP NOW! IT'S AN EMERGENCY!"

She only batted half-heartedly at the air around her, hoping to make contact. He sighed again and grabbed her hand. Big mistake. By doing that he let her know his position and in return got a fist to the side of his wrist causing it to make an unnatural sound and bend at an unnatural angle. He leapt back and cried out in pain. He glared down at her sleeping form. That was the last straw, they had to go. Now. He didn't have time for this. He turned around and grabbed an unused basin of water from her bath the night before and dumped it on her.

"AHHHHHHH!" Ryin sat bolt upright looking around frantically for the source of the disturbance. Her eyes alighted on Horo. She glared daggers at him. "You..."

"You can kill me later. Right now, we have a huge-ass skeleton to beat."

She grumbled the entire time but got dressed and met up with Horo just outside the main Hyrule gate.

"Alright, this bastard woke me up-let's do this fast."

"Ah, thank the goddesses for sleep grudges."

They faced the skeleton that towered above them. "I suppose as acting queen I should advise you to stand down, before we kick your ugly, boney ass into next week." She got a loud bellow and unsheathed swords as a response. "Fine by me. I was hoping for a fight."

And so the battle began. They danced and parried around their foe, swords screeching on bone. They made a valiant effort but they were getting tired quickly and it was showing no signs of slowing. Then with one fell sweep of the sword both of them were knocked off their feet. They skidded to a halt several feet away. Horo sat up, winded. "This seems way harder than it should."

Ryin sat up as well, groaning. "My parents made it sound easy! Well, not _easy_ but not this hard!" she whined.

Horo stood up and helped her to her feet. "I guess we just keep going. Nothing can last forever." She raised an eyebrow. "...theoretically." he looked her over. "You're covered in blood."

"Gee thanks. So're you."

"Fantastic. Ready to go?"

"Yup." He set off; before she could too something caught her eye. She looked off to the side. A man stood off to the side of the battle, beside the river. The skeleton hadn't seemed to of noticed him, but she had to get him out of there before he was. She ran to him. "Hey you! Get out of there!" He turned in surprise at the sound of her voice. She stopped when he turned to face her. She recognised him! In her moment of confusion she didn't hear Horo call out a warning. A large, strong, boney forearm came out of nowhere and knocked her aside like a doll. She landed dangerously close to the edge of the river.

"RYIN!"

She sat up. The strange man was watching her with interest. She knew him. Even though it was only a glimpse, she would recognize the dark hair and piercing blue eyes anywhere-it was the man in castle town that stared at her the other day. Strange. She headed over to Horo.

"Hey. It took you long enough. Why'd you hesitate?"

She pointed to the man. "I dunno who he is or what he's doing here, but we hafta get rid of him. I don't wanna get killed trying to protect him."

"Right. I'll grab him. Cover me." She nodded. Horo headed off to where the man stood. Whereas Ryin doubled back around the skeleton and slashed at its leg. It spun around and faced her in fury. It sent strike after strike of its sword in her direction. She ducked and dodged out of its way. Narrowly missing getting chopped in half. She back flipped, only to be met with a six foot sword heading directly towards her she held up her sword to block it. The impact was so forceful it knocked her flying several feet away. She gasped as residual shocks ran up her arms. She got up, dazed; her ears still rang from the sound of collision of metal on metal. She had survived the blow, but too many more like that would undoubtedly be the end of her.

Meanwhile Horo was sneaking around the other side of the skeleton so he could get to the man. Despite being knocked around, Ryin apparently had the situation under control; its attention was diverted for now. As he drew close however, it appeared that that wasn't the case. As soon as he got with speaking distance with the man, the demon abandoned Ryin completely, spun around and delivered a blow to his back. Fortunately Ryin had called out at the last second and he had evaded the worst of the attack. Unfortunately he still ended up with a long jagged cut down one side of his chest and part of his leg.

"Horo!" With Horo incapacitated the skeleton turned its attention back to Ryin, as if nothing had happened. She ran to him and helped him up.

"Damn." He panted. "I didn't see it coming."

"We need a plan."

"Any ideas?"

"He needs to have a weak spot. Somewhere...somewhere..." Ryin closed her eyes and thought back to her parents' stories. She had it. She looked up to solidify her theory. There. "The jewel on its head. That's the weak point. You might also want to cut away its armour straps-it'd be easier to fight with less protection."

"How do you know the jewel's the weak point?"

"If there's ever any inconsistency in the face, chest or eye it's pretty much always going to be a weak spot. Especially if it's a different colour, or glows."

"So let's say that some demon, some _green _demon had a glowing purple horn on its face... Because normally horns are used as weapons."

"Horo?" she said sweetly. "Shut up." He smirked. "The jewel is the weak point because I said so...also because I remember from one of my parents' stories."

"Well okay then. How're we gonna get up to it? Cutting away armour straps is no problem, but this thing's at least twenty feet tall."

"I was thinking more like thirty..." she saw the look on his face. "Okay, okay. I thought you'd never ask." She produced a bow from behind her scabbard and said with a smile: "Ta-da! I brought my own this time!"

"Fantastic. I'll cut away the armour and you hit the jewel. I hope you're a good shot..."

Ryin shook her head and walked off, muttering to herself. "He asks if I'm a good shot..."

They took their positions. Horo under the beast and Ryin some distance away, poised at the ready, waiting for the perfect opportunity. They began the revised plan. Horo ducked and danced around, slashing at the straps. Ryin arched the bow, poised at the ready. She was on a hair trigger. As soon as the jewel came into her path, as soon as she could get a clear shot. They could only afford one shot. Anymore and the beast might catch on to their plan.

Horo rolled out of the way as the giant kicked out at him, trying to remove him from its underside. It was tedious work, but had succeeded in removing a couple plates of armour. It was weaker without them, but its speed had significantly increased. _Ryin's help would be very much appreciated right now!_

_C'mon you ugly skeleton thing, turn a bit more to the right..._

The beast slashed at Horo and he back flipped to the left-Ryin's right. _Perfect!_ Ryin had the perfect shot. She took aim... She was about to let the arrow fly... WHAM! Milliseconds before she let the arrow loose she was rammed into from the side. Her and her attacker bounced and rolled several feet away-with him ultimately on top. The monster's sword thudded to the ground right where she'd been standing. She looked up at the man straddling her. It was the young man they were trying to save! So...why was he on top of her? Why had he stopped her from killing the monster?

"What the hell-?" He stared intently into her eyes.

After a heartbeat he scrambled off her and held out a hand. She pushed past it and stood up herself, hands on hips. "What the hell is your problem? I was trying to save your sorry ass by killing this thing! What the hell did you think you were doing-pushing me like that?"

He looked away sheepishly. "Sorry. But it was going to hit you, I had to save you."

"Yeah, well it wouldn't of if you'd let me hit it first. This arrow here? If you had let me shoot it, then it would've died. If it had died, then I wouldn't of gotten hurt now would I? You are such a _fool_!" she fumed, throwing up her hands in frustration as she practically screamed at him. He had ruined her chance!

Suddenly a yell was heard over the din Ryin was making. She spun her head in time to see one of the beast's attacks collide with Horo. "Horo!" She turned back to the man. "You see him?" she pointed to Horo, who was staggering to his feet. "Your interference is the reason he got hurt. I know I'm supposed to be Hyrule's savior and all, but if you keep getting in the way and getting us hurt, I won't hesitate to slit your throat. Get it?" he nodded. "Good. Go stand over there." She pointed over near his original standing place. She didn't wait to see if he left or not, normally her threats were enough to make a grown man follow her orders like they were commandments from the goddesses themselves. She stomped over to help Horo.

"What happened? You had a perfect shot!"

"You can blame this on him," she jerked her thumb backwards "he thought it would be a god idea to save me."

Horo cracked a smile, exposing a bloody mouth. "I'm surprised he's still alive."

"Everyone gets one warning."

"Except me. I got two." He said with a wink.

She tossed her head nonchalantly. "You're different. However, can we please focus on this thing?"

He nodded. "Switch roles?" Ryin nodded. Horo took the bow while Ryin set off weaving in and out between the giant's legs.

Horo set up the bow, as he waited for a chance to shoot he turned his attention to the man who was messing up the battle. He was young-about his age-with ruffled black hair and was fairly handsome. He looked angry, and slightly frustrated. He watched Ryin fighting with an almost aggressive intensity. Horo was so focussed on watching this suspicious man that he almost missed his chance to shoot. In fact he probably would've if Ryin hadn't screamed out in pain as the sword caught her leg. His friend's pain snapped him back to reality and he forgot all about the strange man. He was about to let lose an arrow when a warning came up from behind him. He turned partially to see, but let go of the string as he did it. Of course it was completely off target. Instead of hitting the jewel on its forehead, it hit the glowing, empty void that was the skeleton's eye. This only enraged it more. Unfortunately Ryin was right in its rampage path and got tossed several yards away and lay in a crumpled, bloody heap.

Horo ran to her to help her up. "Ryin! Ryin, are you alright?"

She tried to sit up but collapsed instantly, her body heaving as she coughed. Blood dribbled down her face and out of her mouth. Horo wound an arm around her waist and pulled her into a sitting position so she could lean on his chest. She let out a sharp gasp when he touched her though. "What's wrong? Anything broken?"

"Yes!" she hissed.

"What?"

"My wrist and a couple ribs. Fortunately it's my right wrist, I dunno what I'd do if it was my left."

"You strange left-handed person, you."

"Inherited traits. My dad is too." She coughed, causing more blood to run down her face and onto Horo' jacket.

"Nice. You're getting me all bloody." He scolded her.

"Oh I'm _so_ sorry. You can barely tell-you're covered in blood too." She looked up at h and suddenly glared. "What the hell happened? You could've at least hit it and made my suffering worthwhile."

"Trust me, I was going to, but you friend over there distracted me."

Ryin frowned. "Oh he did, did he?"

"He called out to you, something about being careful."

Her frown deepened. "Remember when I said I didn't want to die trying to protect him? Well now he's doing the protecting and I'm the one dying! My two least favorite things." Horo smiled. "Something needs to be done."

"I have an idea on how to get rid of him, but it only gives us a short time. We need a plan on how we're gonna beat this thing."

She nodded. "Obviously the jewel tactic isn't working. I think there's another way." She closed her eyes and thought back to their foe. How it looked and tried to match it to her parents' encyclopedic knowledge of demons and monsters. She went through each of their stories. A giant skeleton. They'd beaten one in Salderin. That one had been fifteen to twenty feet approximately. Much smaller. This one was twenty-five to thirty feet. It was as big as the outer Castle Town wall. No, bigger. As big as... sizes of buildings ran through her mind. As big as... the Kakariko windmill! Something clicked. The windmill was the key word. Her parents had had a similar foe several years ago when Ganondorf's army had taken over Kakariko Village. The leader had camped out in the windmill. How had they beaten it? Something unusual and dangerous... Something like... "Fire!"

"Excuse me?"

"Fire! That's how my parents did it. We need to set this thing on fire."

"Do you see any fire around here?"

"We have to go get some, stupid. I'm sure you can find some in the market."

"Me?"

"I'll just slow us down. Run as fast as you possibly can, grab the fire and we'll put an end to this stupid battle. I'll hold off our large friend here." Horo bit his lip, then seemed to make up his mind and nodded. "Good. Be quick, cuz I'll hafta distract this thing while you're gone-and I don't think I can take many more hits. What's our plan for getting rid of this guy?" she jerked her thumb at their 'savior'.

Horo explained his plan Ryin nodded and they both head out to their positions. It was a fairly simple plan, not at all suspicious-which was good, they didn't want the man to catch on. Horo ducked down by the skeleton's legs and began the familiar, hopeless fight. Ryin, like before, limped over to the side and, with great difficulty, took aim at the jewel on its forehead and waited. Fortunately she didn't have to wait long. Moments later the strange man hurdled out of nowhere and smashed into her. Unbeknownst to him, she could barely hold the bow, let alone fire it, even if she wanted to. With him on top of her again, 'protecting' her, he wasn't paying attention to Horo, who had whistled to the sky. Soon after Mist's shadow appeared overhead, she swooped down, plucked the man up like he was nothing and carried him away. She alighted down on one of the stone support pillars for the drawbridge, with the man squirming in her talons.

Ryin staggered to her feet, clutching her side. "Perfect..." she looked over; Horo nodded to her and took off towards the Market. Now she only had to keep the skeleton busy for a short while without getting any more broken bones, or getting killed in the very least.

Horo seemed to take forever to find fire. In reality it was only a few minutes but a few minutes can feel like eternity when you're deflecting blow after blow from a thirty foot skeleton with a six foot sword, all this when you have several broken bones and gouges down the length of your body. For someone with the above afflictions Ryin was doing fairly well, but nothing good can ever last and it wasn't long before she was tossed away with a new wound across her chest. It was the end, she knew it. The beast bore down on her. She was losing blood fast and probably wouldn't be able to stand up again. All she could do was lie in wait, either for Horo to return or for the skeleton to finish her off.

What she didn't expect, nor was she prepared for, was the third option. The skeleton was steps away from finishing her off and she was just preparing to die when she saw it. Over the town's walls flew an enormous silver dragon, easily as big as the skeleton itself-and it made its way over to it. Ryin's heart sank and filled with dread. What horrible timing! She couldn't even beat a giant skeleton-there was no way she could beat both it _and_ a dragon. Even with Horo's help it would be impossible. She shut her eyes. The dragon let out a roar, so did the skeleton. Her eyes opened, despite herself and to her amazement she saw the two colossuses battling it out in the sky. Maybe she'd get lucky they'd both be too busy fighting about who got to finish her off that they'd annihilate themselves in the process. The skeleton swung its sword and missed the dragon; however it sent it straight towards Ryin's crumpled form. Even if she could move, she wouldn't have time to do so. This time would surely be the end...or not. The sword stopped a meter above her as the dragon swooped down and caught the sword in its powerful, clawed hand, then it let out a scalding blast of flames that licked and smothered the skeleton as it screeched and died. In just a few short seconds the battle was over and won. The dragon tossed its great head back to look down at Ryin, who met its eyes in wonder, then it took off back the way it came and disappeared. With the danger gone, Ryin finally collapsed in exhaustion and waited for Horo to find her.

**Hmmm a dragon. Has Ikana's protector followed Ryin all the way back to Hyrule, or was it just a fluke? But yay! Ryin has friends! She's not a total jerk, she's able to be nice...sometimes. A review will make an update come quicker! Please!**


	5. 4 Abhorrence, Theories and Secrets

**Look, look! I updated! Huzzah! My update time is getting longer and longer! This isn't even a plot filled chapter and nothing really moves forward. Well I mean there are _some _important parts that'll come into play later, but it's mostly just filler. Um...what else... Oh! An important bit of info that you might've noticed in the first chapter and you'll really notice at the beginning of this one and in several other chapters down the road-Ryin is a bit of a drama queen. When impending bad things are about to happen, she imagines them actually happening and in the worst was possible, even though they're not. Like in chpt 1-when she slipped off the platform and she imagined herself fallin and drowning in the water-never to be seen again and no one would be able to save her. Even though sentences later, Shaoran pulled her out. You'll see this hee in the first paragraph. Anyways, enjoy!**

_**Chapter Four: Abhorrence, Theories and Secrets**_

Ryin didn't know how long she lay in a crumpled pile in the middle of Hyrule field, waiting for Horo to find her. She tried to remain optimistic, but he had been gone for hours and she was sure had left her to die. In fact she could feel her heart slowing, the lack of oxygen starting to affect her brain. She was dying painfully. With an aching gasp, her heart gave its last couple beats before finally giving in. Without its supply of blood or oxygen the rest of her body soon followed. The world around her grew dark as her vision slowly dimmed...

"Ryin!" her eyes snapped open and her head lolled to the side to see Horo running up to her with a torch in his hand. He tossed it aside and knelt down beside her, gently holding her, looking on in horror at the blood.

"Hey Horo... You brought the fire."

He gave a breathy laugh. "Yup, it looks like it wasn't needed though. Did you see that dragon?" she gave her head a slow roll to indicate 'yes'. "Don't worry, you'll be fine. We'll get you somewhere safe."

"Shaoran's. He helps when things get rough." Horo nodded and dragged her to her feet. He slipped her arm around his neck and slowly, painfully made their way back to town. He stumbled quite a few times, due to both his and Ryin's injuries, mostly the jagged cut that ran down his leg-which was bleeding profusely. But he pressed onwards, more for Ryin than himself-he could care less if he died, but Ryin would be too much. They were shaky, new, love-hate friends, but even so, he couldn't bear to lose her. She looked so much like _her_,and he hadn't been able to save _her_.

Just as he stumbled for the third time and was about to collapse when a cry went up and the strange man ran over to him with Mist circling above. He grabbed Ryin's other arm and slung it over his neck as well. "What-? What're you doing?"

He bowed his head. "I feel bad, since most of this was my fault. I was only trying to save her, but it was really stupid of me to think that the two of you needed help. Let me help you carry her to, wherever it is you bring injured people."

Horo looked at him strangely, but shook his head. "Thank you so much. It's alright-you were only trying to help. I'm Horo by the way."

"Dorian."

"No." Ryin's voice surprised them. They had thought she'd lost consciousness.

"What?"

She turned her head to the side to glare at Horo. "I said 'no'. No, I don't want him here. He can leave."

"Ryin, he's helping me carry you. I can't do it by myself-I'm injured. I _need _him."

"Then we can both just lay here and die."

"I'm not dying for your pride. Come on he's trying to help."

"He tried to kill me! You wouldn't be carrying me if he hadn't tackled me every time I even _looked_ at my bow."

"He said he was sorry and was only trying to help."

"Well too bad. I don't believe or trust him."

Horo sighed. "I'm not arguing with you on this one. He's staying, if you don't want him to, then you can walk yourself. Which is bad since you can't even stand-let alone walk." That shut her up.

Silence as they limped along. Until Dorian broke it tentatively. "Ryin?" She didn't answer. "I'm very sorry for what I did and how I acted. I understand how you hate being saved."

"And hates new people." Horo added.

Dorian nodded. "And hate new people. But what I'm trying to ask is, will you forgive me and can we start over?"

"No." She sniffed.

He hung his head and sighed. "I can tell you're going to be stubborn about this, so I'm not even going to bother. I guess you'll learn to like me in time."

"No. I'll just never trust or like you."

"That's what you said about me." Horo reasoned.

"Well I'm not liking you much right now, am I?"

They continued in silence. It took them several more minutes to reach Shaoran's house. By then Horo and Dorian were exhausted and Horo about to collapse from his injuries. Ryin had long since passed out from hers despite having the energy to argue with the two of them. When they arrived they were met by a shocked and pale Shaoran who immediately gathered Ryin up in his arms and hurried the rest of them into the house.

Shaoran knocked everything off the table and lay Ryin onto it. He barked orders at Dorian as he began carefully examining her wounds. "Dorian! Grab me the box of bandages and potions. They're both in the second last cupboard above the counter. Then grab me a basin of water and a cloth. Horo, if you can move, can you come help me with this?"

He unbuckled Ryin's weapons and gave them to Horo to hold. Being her oldest and most trusted friend (and experienced in the healing department) he began taking off her clothes piece by piece, while Horo respectively looked away. Boots, gloves, belt, tunic, leggings. They had adequate access to enough of her flesh to bandage her up without invading her privacy. For her chest and back wounds they rolled up her thin tank top around her breasts, so as to not induce her wrath when she woke up. Their plan was flawless and working fine for them until they hit a bit of a snag. One of the more deeper cuts that ran across her chest went in one side of the cloth and out the other, meaning in order to dress it they'd have to remove the cloth. Which was not a pleasant thought. Well, being guys, the thought of Ryin shirtless _was_ rather pleasant to think about. Anyone could tell she had a very nice, er, _figure_ and almost every guy in town (and out of town) had imagined her clothesless at some point. However with the impending possibility of her suddenly waking up, they weren't about to risk it.

"Shaoran you do it. You've known her the longest."

"Which is exactly why I _shouldn't_-she trusts me too much. You do it."

"No way! She just started liking me-I'm not going to jeopardize that! Dorian! You do it. She already hates you."

"Don't bring me into this!"

"Well _someone _has to do it."

While they all stood around, bickering the front door opened and in walked Shaoran's mother holding bags of groceries. "Shaoran, I bought some-oh!" she let the bags dropped when she saw the scene in front of her. Her son and two strange men each covered in copious amounts of blood standing over an apparently dead Ryin. Who was covered in blood and pretty scantily dressed. All that in her-until recently-clean kitchen. Now the kitchen was torn apart, with blood and boxes strewn everywhere. Broken dishes, bloody, used bandages and the former occupants of the table littered the floor. In short-a disaster zone.

Her first reaction was not one of horror but of disapproval. "Shaoran Cartwright! Were you really just about to take off that flimsy piece of nothing covering what little dignity Ryin has left after being stripped in front of these two?" She barged past them and shooed them away. "Honestly! I expected better from you. If you even thought for a _second_ about what's under that cloth, then mark my words I'll tell Ryin all about this incident and your perverse thoughts. _All _of your perverse thoughts." She warned, looking at the rest of them. "Really Shaoran, she's like a sister to you. I know this is what I've been pushing for and that you're secretly in love with her" Horo snickered "but you can't do this-not like this. And _certainly _not with other people around."

Shaoran put his face in his hands and groaned. What a wrong turn this situation had taken. "Mom, we were just-"

"It doesn't matter. Now all of you look away." They did as they were told, lest she made god on her word. She snatched the bandages out of Dorian's hands and began dressing Ryin's remaining wounds.

Now with nothing to do Horo collapsed in a spare chair, his exhaustion finally catching up. Dorian went over to lean in the corner, carefully facing away from the girls. Shaoran came over with bandages and began treating Horo.

Horo broke the silence first. "Was Ryin always like this? Stubborn and bad-tempered?"

"She isn't now. Bad-tempered, I mean. Obviously she's stubborn."

Horo looked at him. "Yes she is. She hates new people, doesn't trust anyone and refuses to acknowledge people who help her."

Shaoran thought for a moment as he wrapped Horo's arm. "She's not bad-tempered. That's just the way she is. Think about who her parents are. They trusted someone when they first met him and he turned out to be a psychotic maniac. Now that she's taking over the family business she has to learn not to trust people right away. It's essential in her line of work. As for not acknowledging people, that has to do with her stubbornness and pride. She refuses to believe she was weak enough to merit help from someone she deems 'beneath her'. It's probably an inherited trait from her mother. In case you didn't know it's mostly men she doesn't trust and hates being helped by."

Horo nodded. He could understand where she was coming from, but it didn't give her an excuse to constantly be rude to people who are only trying to help. "Does she show up like this often? Or, should I say, _used_ to?"

"She used to-when she was alone. But now she has you and I suppose I'm glad for that. She won't get hurt as much and will have a friend who shares the same interests." Shaoran said wistfully with a touch of sadness. Him voice grew quiet. He looked up. "You're good for her."

"Ah, no I'm not. I can fight by her side but I'm useless when it comes to injuries."

"But you prevent her from getting new ones. I'd rather her get some small ones that aren't treated than several that are. The more injures she has the less chance she has of surviving. I also didn't like her being out there alone."

Horo watched him for a bit. "You really care for her, don't you?"

"More than anything. Even more than myself." Horo smiled. Shaoran looked up again. "Take care of her, alright? If anything bad happens to her I'm holding you responsible."

He nodded solemnly. "Trust me I won't let-"

He was interrupted by a sudden gasp. They looked over. Ryin sat up, looking around wildly in horror. They all stared back at her. She seemed to be figuring something out. Then: "...where're my clothes?"

Everyone burst into laughter. "You just woke up in a strange place covered in injuries with people standing around staring at you and your first question is about your lack of clothing. Wow, Ryin, just wow."

"Shut up Horo. My lack of clothing is a very delicate topic. For instance, I may have to kill or seriously maim three out of four of you. Besides, since I'm a bloody genius, I was able to process the what and the where very quickly."

He smirked. "Well you got the 'bloody' part right."

She narrowed her eyes and hopped off the table. "Ha ha. No seriously, where're my clothes?" She looked around.

"What clothes?" Shaoran said dryly. "You mean these bloody shreds we removed from your body?"

She grimaced. "Yes those." She sighed. "Oh well. I needed new clothes anyways." She looked around. "I'm hungry." Everyone stared at her. "What? Near death experiences make me hungry."

They all shook their heads. With Ryin apparently well enough to move, Horo decided it was time to head back to the castle for more in-depth healing. Then much to Ryin's dismay, he invited Dorian along as thanks. He accepted, with much protesting and screamed profanities from Ryin.

"Thanks for protecting me from the scrutiny of these perverts' eyes." Ryin jerked her thumb at the three boys behind her, who all shared scared looks.

"No trouble. Don't worry," she flashed a disapproving look at them "I didn't let them see anything." She moved hug her.

"Good thanks mum. Glad I can count on _you_." She returned the hug, then turned to Shaoran. "Thanks for letting me borrow your clothes."

"Well I know how much you hate dresses." She grimaced. He gave her a hug and a quick kiss on the cheek. "Take care of yourself Ryin." He turned to Horo and shook her hand. "Take care of her, please?"

"Don't worry, nothing bad'll happen to her."

"Hey! I don't need taking care of, so you can all piss off."

"Language, Ryin." They both chided her. She grumbled.

"Thanks for patching up Ryin, um... I never got your name..." Horo said to Shaoran's mom.

"Nathalia, and it was no trouble, she's been coming to me for years for this sort of thing."

"Still, thanks." He moved to shake her hand, she ignored it and hugged him instead.

"Take care of yourself Horo. You two are always welcome here."

"Okay, okay! Enough sappy goodbyes, can we go home now before I pass out again? So I can go brood in my room and thus avoid anything to do with this useless attempted murderer here." She motioned to Dorian, who shook his head.

Finally with all the goodbyes done and everyone travel-worthy, they finally head home.

***astrix astrix astrix***

"So. When is our evil warlord friend going to leave?"

Horo looked up from his book. "I assume you're talking about Dorian."

"Yup." She sat on the arm of his chair. "He's been here a week and all the bad murderous vibes he's giving off are setting off my 'hero-senses'."

"Your _what_?"

"My hero-senses. What I get when something doesn't quite feel right."

"You had those with me, and now we're friends."

She waved a hand. "You still don't feel quite right. I can really tell after the big skeleton battle where we found that murderous little bastard in the first place, especially after that battle I can tell you're hiding something from me. And believe me," she leaned in close "I'm going to find out what."

He let out a shaky laugh. He tried to stay calm. "I'm not hiding anything, honest."

She shook her head, dismissively. "Whatever. But can you please tell that snivelling, ungrateful, murderous, back-stabbing little maggot that's freeloading off me and my family that it's time for him to piss off or I shall drown him in the moat."

Horo cocked an eyebrow and looked past her at the sofa. "I hope you know, I'm sitting right here, behind you and I can hear every word, every insult you say about me. You could at least say these things to my face." Dorian stated from his place on the sofa behind her.

"I'm sorry, Horo, did you hear something?"

He regarded her with interest. "No wonder you like Shaoran so much. I have a theory, see. The first stranger you meet, you like a lot. Next one, not quite as much. Next, a bit less. So on and so forth. In short, you like each person a little less until you downright hate them."

"Your theory is lame." She hopped off the chair and started walking towards the door and Horo went back to his book. "Don't forget to tell that wimpy, bratty, little psychopath what I told you."

He didn't look up. "I'm not telling him to leave."

"Of course you are. I'd tell him myself, I'm just afraid that I'd vomit upon seeing his fat, ugly, wart of a face."

"What does it mean again, when someone always insults you? Isn't it that they actually have feelings for you?" Dorian wondered.

Ryin spun around, furious. "YOU ROTTEN LITTLE BASTARD, I COULD _NEVER_ HAVE FEELINGS FOR YOU!" she screamed at him. A pause. "Except feelings of hate. I have plenty of those."

"Well, well, well, looks who's talking to me again."

"I am actually this close, this close" she held up two fingers practically touching "to slitting your throat." She turned to Horo. "Make him leave."

"No."

"Trust me, it's for the best."

"If you want him gone so badly, then you tell him to leave."

She shook her head vigorously. "Oh no, I don't want him gone. I want him to stay here, because if he stays here I'll kill him. And I'm totally okay with that."

"Would it kill you to be nice to him?"

"Yes!"

"Ryin, you can't just-"

Dorian interrupted him. "No, no. I think she's right, it's about time for me to go. I should head home. Thanks for your hospitality, Horo. Give my thanks to the rest of Ryin's family; at least _some_ people were nice to me." He stared pointedly at Ryin. She stuck her tongue out at him. "Well, I might see you again sometime. Bye." He waved and left the study.

Ryin walked over to an empty armchair and sat down with a sigh. "Thank the goddesses, I thought you'd never leave."

"What the hell's your problem? You may not want to believe it, but he did save your life-both of our lives. The least you could do is be somewhat civil to him."

"No." She crossed her arms and looked stubbornly away.

"You're an idiot you know that and you'll never have any friends." She looked back, seemingly uncaringly. "Why do you hate him that much anyways?"

She was silent for a bit. "I don't trust him."

Horo threw up his hands with an exasperated sigh. "_Why_ don't you trust him?"

"There's something about him. Something...off... He seems too... I dunno... Well, let's just say I wouldn't be surprised if he was an evil warlord trying to take over the world. My theory is that he's here spying on us and he'll take the information that _you_ gave him and use it against us. Not anytime soon however, this entire process will take several years. By then we'll forget about him and we'll hit a dead end because _nobody_ suspects dear old Dorian. Well turns out, when we think we're confronting the real bad guy, he comes out of nowhere and kills one of us from behind, without showing his face. Now the selected person who survived is in a complete and total slump with no friends and no partner while some nameless, faceless force takes over the world. Meanwhile you still have no idea who's behind this and you go to infiltrate whichever castle he chooses as homebase, you get captured and then, wonders upon wonders, you finally meet face to face with the bad guy, who, no surprise to me, is Dorian. Well hooray for you, if you had only listened to me then you wouldn't be in that mess. Shortly after you finally come face to face with him, he'll kill you and right before you die you'll think: 'Oh Din, if only I had listened to Ryin all those years ago back in the study, then maybe I could've lived!' Then you'll die a horrible painful death and I'll laugh and dance around your grave with my 'I told ya so' dance. Dorian will then proceed to take over the world and everyone'll die. The End."

Silence.

"And you thought _my_ theory was weird."

"It'll happen!"

"I hope you know your theory is slightly flawed. First you started out saying that 'one of us' will die, then it switched over to you."

"If you died, you couldn't of learned a life lesson out of all this."

"Which is...?"

"I was right about Dorian. You can die knowing that all your life you've been living a lie and you can die with this unrequited apology dying in your chest. You'll never be able to tell me you're sorry for not believing you and saving your life when I had the chance."

"Oookay. And second, if you're dead, how're you supposed to dance on my grave?"

"I will spiritually dance on your grave. In spectral form. Hypothetically! Besides the fact that Dorian will take over the world is the important part."

"...Do you know what the word 'paranoia' means?"

"Shut up you stupid little bastard! I'm not paranoid!" She stood up and stomped over to the door. Right before she left she turned back and pointed at him. "If he ends up taking over, I'm going to laugh at you until I burst an internal organ. Then I'll refuse to help you and make you fight all alone. Mark my words Horo, it'll happen." Then she stalked off to her room while Horo, laughing quietly, went back to his book.

***astrix astrix astrix***

Days later Horo was sitting on a balcony watching the sun set. He closed his eyes and let the glow watch over him. It was quite as beautiful as it was back home, but he had to admit, the view from atop the castle was breath-taking. The last dying rays of the day warmed his skin, he could feel his aching muscles heal at their touch. The sun calmed him, it strengthened him. Which was essential in a life dedicated to fighting evil. Especially with the monster increase rate as of recently. He was tired and stressed out, but nothing compared to Ryin. There were new ruling issues in Hyrule. The smaller population of zoras who had broken off the main tribe that lived at Lake Hylia were causing problems with the original group. And King Zora was growing increasingly senile in his old age and refused help from anyone. Even if it was the zoras' problem, it became a national problem since it affected two separate domains. Therefore Ryin being acting queen, had to regulate it. In other news, the Gerudo crime rate was up and without Reena there, it was nearly impossible to stop them as they refuse to talk to anyone besides a 'worthy' female. Which basically meant Reena and occasionally Ryin. But since Reena was off on an international crusade and Ryin was busy fighting evil and dealing with other ruling problems, they basically escaped without reprimand. It seemed to be a stressful time for everyone and now there was no doubt, Hyrule was in turmoil. Horo buried his face in his hands and massaged his eyes.

"What are we going to do?" he muttered to himself.

"It's going to get a lot more difficult soon." A voice answered.

In a flash Horo had his sword out and swung it at the stranger behind him. To his surprise the man had just as, or perhaps quicker reflexes than him and was there to meet his with a weapon of his own. Horo backflipped out of the way, spun around and slashed at the man, who dodged it and retaliated with an attack of his own. Horo only just ducked just in time, it barely missed the tip of his nose. A few more non-connecting blows were exchanged. Despite the fact that Horo was managing to hold his own, he was no match for the stranger. Each of his blows had been expertly blocked by his opponent's large scythe or a skeletal looking shield, whereas the blows to himself were only just blocked with many close calls.

But then to his surprise the man stopped. He lowered his weapon, but stayed on guard. "Lower your weapon." He said in a deep voice. Horo stayed where he was, sword poised and ready, but he didn't attack. The man's eyes narrowed and he tightened his grasp on his scythe. "I said, lower it." Horo lowered his sword a fraction. The man sighed and held up his hands in mock surrender. "Fine. If I put away my weapon will you lower yours?" Horo didn't say anything. The man sighed again and made good on his word. "I expect you to trust me. I made good on my word and put away my weapon, the least you could do is lower yours. But don't even think of trying anything funny-I'm still quick enough to free my weapon and remove your head from your shoulders before you make it within a foot from me."

Horo narrowed his eyes, but lowered his sword. He spoke for the first time. "Who are you and what're you doing here."

The man sat down on the balcony in Horo's previous spot in a complete look of ease. "I'm Shindou and I'm here to answer your question."

Horo watched him. "What questions?"

"Question, not questions. You only asked one so far." He corrected.

"That I did. But you didn't even answer it properly." He replied wryly.

Shindou smiled. "That I didn't." He motioned for Horo to sit next to him. After a moment of suspicious hesitation he accepted. "The truth is however, I have no answer to your question. What you choose to do is up to you. But I can tell you that you need to figure it out soon because things are going to get a lot tougher. Soon you'll be pushed to your limits trying to hide your true form from Ryin."

In a flash Horo jumped at him, sword drawn. Shindou only sighed, dodged the blade, grabbed Horo's wrist and twisted it violently behind his back. Horo cried out in pain. "I told you to put your sword away." He said dangerously. "I'm not here to hurt you. Just be happy I didn't follow through and decapitated you."

Horo grit his teeth in pain as Shindou forced him to drop his sword. "How do you know what I am?"

Shindou chuckled. "I know a lot of things about a lot of people. And frankly, your secret is pretty obvious especially if you know your family's history."

Horo jerked in offence, trying to free himself from Shindou's iron grasp. "I'll kill you before I let you mention this to Ryin."

Shindou looked at him pityingly. "I'm going to steal a classic Ryin saying here because, though incredibly rude, her sayings are often the best ways of getting the point across. What, are you stupid? I just warned you about hiding your secret from her and you think I'm going to tell her? That would be a real dick move on my behalf. I'm just here to give you fair warning that there'll be a time in the near future where you'll have to go to extreme measures in order in order for her to remain ignorant."

Horo looked up at him. "Can you see the future?"

He laughed. "Not quite. Not like _some _people." Horo grimaced. "I just know that soon, there'll be a bad guy who the only way to defeat is by using your power. Which I'm sure you'll want to hide from Ryin." He looked down at Horo. "And I'm sure you wouldn't want _that _to happen." Horo jerked in rage and was let go from the other's grip. Shindou stood up. "Just thought I should let you know." He began walking away.

"Who are you?" Horo called after him.

"I told you-I'm Shindou."

"Fine." Horo grumbled lowly. "_What_ are you?"

Shindou chuckled and bent down so they could look eye to eye. "That's not part of the deal, now is it?"

"What deal?" Horo growled.

"The deal you made with me when you listened to what I had to say. The deal is, I give you various little snippets of incredibly true information and you don't ask me anything in return. Or try to find me, not because I care, but because there's no way you'll find me-unless I want you to. And let me tell you-I don't! I'll just show up when I have something to say or something that'll be of use to you." He stood up. "Of course, most of the time it won't even be to you. Your cute little friend deserves some of my wisdom too don't you think? It's only fair."

"You leave Ryin out of this."

"Oh come on, how do you think she's gonna take it when she finds out you're stopping her from learning important information about your quest? You don't need to add anything else to the list of things you're hiding from her anyways. Don't worry, I won't hurt her. You can make good on your promise that you made Shaoran."

"How do you-?"

Shindou laughed and stood up. "I already told you-I know lots of things about lots of people. Just think of me as your personal database." He looked up at the sky. "Well, I should be going." He looked back down at Horo. "You'll be hearing from me again soon. Not directly of course." Then with a flash and a whirlwind, he was gone leaving Horo alone and quite bewildered.

**Ooh! Another mysterious figure who is dropping minor, yet vague clues about Horo. Shindou knows eveything about everyone, this could be bad news for Horo. Anyways, yeah Ryin's a jerk. An even bigger jerk than before. Horo's theory may actually be right. And what an awkward moment at Shaoran's. Gee, I think it's about time for Horo to feel awkward. That'll be next chapter folks, in which I try to write a sappy romance-stay tuned! **


	6. 5 Complications

**Hey guys! Miss me? Ah, who'm I kidding, you just missed the story. I have no excuse for this, I'm just late. Ugh, looks like a month is the average wait time for any given chapter in this story. So apparently Ryin and Shaoran make a cute couple, thus leaving Horo as a third wheel. Which is, basically the story of my life. But anyways, we'll come back to this topic. There'll be no more third wheeling at the end of this, okay maybe there will but the tables will be turned- ha-HA! Enjoy!**

_**Chapter Five: Complications**_

"Ugh what a day!" complained Ryin as she and Horo dragged themselves into the throne room. Terk trotted in behind them. She yawned and rested her hands behind her head. "I'm gonna go have a nice long bath then sleep for like, a week. Just so long as no one decides to bother us with some annoyingly pointless problem."

"Agreed." Sighed Horo as he came up beside her.

"Annoyingly pointless problem you say? Well sorry to disappoint you sis, but that's exactly what I've got for you." Deren said as he made his way over from the direction of the study.

"Oh no!" groaned Horo. "We just got back."

Deren smirked. "Not you Horo, this one's for our lovely queen."

"_What!? _No way!"

"Ha! Well, have fun Ryin. If you need me, I'll be up living your dream in my room. I'll say hi to the bathtub for you." He smirked as he wandered upstairs. Ryin sighed and hung her head.

"Oh and there's someone here to see you...two people actually."

She turned to face her brother and sighed again, massaging her eyes. "Okay, I'll make you a deal. I'll deal with one issue now, then the other later after I've bathed and napped, in return I won't sic Terk on you." she motioned to the exhausted wolfos at her feet. "That is when he's recovered. Now, which issue requires the least amount of effort? Meaning, the one that doesn't involve me moving from this spot?"

"Neither of them require you moving. No, that's not quite true-you have to go to the study to talk to your guests."

"Fine. I'll do that one later. Give me the other news."

Deren was unsure. "This one can wait; I really think you should go see them. It seems pretty important-you wouldn't want to keep them waiting."

She waved a hand. "It involves me moving. I also don't feel like dealing with people right now-I mean I practically feel like throttling you now. This one just involves me listening to you. So, spill."

"Ryin, I really think-"

"Why would you even give me a choice if you're going to hate the one I pick?"

"I didn't give you a choice!" Deren threw up his hands in frustration. "I told you you had to deal with both and if you're going to pick one it had better be the visitors."

"Well I don't want to do that one."

"Stop being so stubborn!"

Ryin narrowed her eyes at him. "Hey Terk?" his ears perked up at the sound of his name. "Feel like ripping off anymore limbs today? Or should we save it for tomorrow?"

"Ha ha. Seriously though, go to the study and we'll deal with this later after your meeting, bath and nap."

"That sounds like a lot of work, so let's just do the easy one now. This is your last chance to tell me before I leave you to go have a bath and nap without doing anything."

"Fine. Fine! That's just peachy. I'll tell your guests that you have no desire to see them, shall I?"

"Yup." She nodded.

Deren sighed. It would be impossible to argue with her even if the visitors were people she _wanted_ to see. "While you were gone the Temple of Time was broken into."

Ryin, who had been petting Terk and not paying her brother much attention, looked up at his words. "What?"

"You heard me. The Temple of Time was broken into."

She paled. "That's what I was afraid you said. What of it?"

"Nothing. Nothing was damaged or stolen."

"Wait, so nothing happened? Tell me, how does this constitute a matter of national security if nothing bad happened. Normally if the temple was broken into you'd report it to the head guard not the acting queen, unless the Triforce of Power or the Master Sword were stolen or something like that."

He smiled wryly down at her. "But that's the thing. Nothing was _stolen_, but I never said anything about an attempt."

She looked back up at him, confused. "An attempt? Like...someone tried to steal something?"

"Right. We found evidence of someone trying to break into the back room where the entrance to the Sacred Realm is, which is where the Triforce of Power is hidden."

"You don't think..."

He shrugged. "I dunno, but dad has the Master Sword and you and aunt Lera have the other two Triforce pieces, therefore there isn't anything else besides Power left in that room. Normally I'd say it's pretty suspicious that it only happened while our protectors were far away in the south of Hyrule at the time, but apparently there was evidence of previous break in attempts. It sure makes you wonder, huh?"

A pause. "Damn it Deren! I told you I wanted the one with the least amount of effort involved! Not the one where I have to go do some detective work." Terk shifted around and let out a low, agitated whine as he sensed his mistress' distress.

"I told you, all you had to do was sit and listen. Since nothing was stolen, you don't have to do anything about it. It was just my duty to inform you of it so you're not kept in the dark."

"I have to do _something_!"

"Like what? Obviously the enchantments are good enough since they haven't yet succeeded. Therefore, the only way they can get in is if you, dad or aunt Lera hand over your mystical goddess built artifacts to them and they use that to get in. The only way into that room is by using a Triforce piece or the Master Sword."

Ryin fidgeted nervously. "I guess so..." she sighed. "Wow Deren, way to add a whole pile of extra stress to my already full load. I need a nap." She turned to leave.

"What about your guests?"

"I already told you-I don't want to deal with them right now. They can wait."

"You know, I don't much like to be kept waiting. How 'bout you Oron?" Wafted a female voice.

"Not at all, not at all. It seems our dear Ryin has grown too important to talk to us. I guess being in control of two countries will do that to a girl. Right, Akami?" Came the male voice.

Ryin gasped. She knew those voices! But, it couldn't be... could it? She didn't dare to hope and yet... Ryin slowly turned around to face the two newcomers that took their places beside Deren, who was smiling. They both regarded her with a mild curiosity. Ryin stared at them, not believing her eyes. Terk reacted first, bounding over to them happily, demanding to be petted. Ryin's gaping mouth widened into a smile as she launched herself at them in a mighty tackle-hug.

"Akami!"

"Hey, Queeny!" Akami mocked, returning the hug.

They let go and marvelled at each other. "You look good. Queen training has done you good. Keep hoping and one day you might be a real one like me." Ryin winked.

"Oh shut up." Akami scoffed, tossing her long, dark red hair over her shoulder. "You're not even queen yourself. And even though you're 'acting queen' you still don't know the first thing about ruling."

"Oh really? I beg to differ!"

"How're those lessons of yours coming?"

Ryin blushed. "Fantastic."

"Name five of your past Hyrulean ruling relatives."

"Um... does my mum count?"

"No."

"Well... there's my grandparents and... um...damn." Akami laughed at her pitiful attempt.

"Alright Akami, enough tormenting our host. It's my turn." Oron turned to Ryin and held open his arms, into which Ryin wasted no time stepping into.

"Hey Oron." Mumbled Ryin into his chest. "I missed you."

"I know," he said as he let her go "I'm very missable." She laughed.

"So what're you both doing here? It's such a long ways away from Guardia."

"Well..."

"Are you all just going to talk here in the throne room or are you going to go sit in the study like normal people?" Deren asked.

Ryin turned on her brother. "You jerk!" she accused, hitting him. "Why didn't you tell me they were here?"

"We told him to keep it a surprise." Akami answered for him.

"Uh-huh. Well I guess the study it is then." Everyone nodded and headed off.

"So," Akami started, plopping down into a plush armchair "judging by your torn clothes caked in dirt and blood and the long gashes covering your body, you're not just a queen."

Ryin laughed. "What're you talking about? This is how I deal with my subjects who disobey my orders." Everyone laughed.

"Well, knowing you, it's pretty believable." Oron teased.

Ryin shrugged. "Pretty much. No, me and Horo have taken over my parents' roles as Hyrule's protectors."

"Horo? Who's that?" Akami wondered.

"Didn't you see him when we walked in? No, I guess you wouldn't have since he went and slunk upstairs leaving me to deal with my country's overly stressful problems. I can describe him for you: tall, dark, broody with long luscious hair tied into a ponytail and he wears this stupid looking trench coat. All he wears is black, gray and white-no colour whatsoever. If you do see him he'll probably be depressed and grumpy looking. You'll be too scared to approach him, but he can be really nice...sometimes...when he's not being a jerk and insulting me. So if you do manage to work up the courage to talk to him, I warn you-don't ask about his past. He'll just get all quiet and defensive and touchy. He has some dark mysterious past that I don't even know about. It's probably something really stupid like-"

"Finish that sentence Ryin, _please_." Horo's voice came coolly from behind them.

Ryin's eye twitched and she let out a high pitched, nervous laugh, turning slowly to face her friend. "Horo, my dear, beautiful best friend. Whom I love _very_ much." She stood up and walked to him with open arms. "How 'bout a hug?"

He cocked an eyebrow. "Really Ryin?"

She nodded. "Mhm." She said nervously. Then dropped her voice to a whisper. "There are too many witnesses."

His eyes narrowed. "Oh that's too bad. You always ruin my fun."

"Well, since you're not killing me, I'd like to introduce you to my dear friends from my childhood. They're the prince and princess of Guardia. Friends, this is Horo. Horo, these are my friends, Oron," Oron stood up and held out a hand. Horo took it and they shook, nodding to one another "and this is his sister Akami." Akami, who had her back to them, stood up slowly and turned to face him. Horo's face grew slack and his jaw dropped. He could feel all the rage, pain and stress leave his body at the sight of her. "They're here for some undisclosed reason that I have yet to figure out..." Ryin prattled on, but Horo wasn't listening. He was too absorbed in Akami. She held out a hand to shake. He ignored it and bent down on one knee, took it and kissed it gently.

"A pleasure to meet you princess." He said, still not meeting her eyes.

"Y-yes..." A slight blush spread across her cheeks and she looked away nervously. She sat down, still avoiding him.

Ryin was still babbling on about the Guardadians, animatedly using her hands. "...So since Salderin's too far away their mum would just meet with my aunt here and that's why we're friends."

Horo looked whispered to Deren. "What's that about your aunt?"

"She and their mom used to be really good friends as princesses, they'd always meet up at the castle and Queen Andrea would bring Akami and Oron to play with Ryin and the rest of us. Truly, Ryin is saying absolutely nothing important, she should be finding out what they're doing here-not that I'm complaining, of course. But every time we reach that topic they avoid it and redirect Ryin's easily distractible thoughts away from it."

"...and Oron is-what did you just say about me?

"See?" Deren said to Horo, rolling his eyes. "Nothing Ryin, continue on."

"Right, uh...where was I?"

"A new conversation-Horo's bored with hearing about every detail you know about them."

"Oh okay. Right so, um, what should we talk about?"

"I think you mean what _you_ should talk about." Oron laughed. "Tell us what sort of adventures you two have had."

"Good plan! Horo? Will you help me tell some of the stories?" But Horo wasn't paying any attention to her at all. His attention was completely focused on Akami, who also didn't seem to be paying attention to Ryin and was instead watching her hands fold and unfold in her lap.

Deren nudged him and his attention was snapped back into the present. "Sorry?"

"If you're paying attention then help me recount some of our heroic exploits for our lovely guests."

"Heroic?" Akami piped up.

"Yeah, I know I'm not really the heroic type-which is kind of weird being my parents' child and all, but we save the day a lot so I guess I'm pretty heroic. I mean we, _we_ are pretty heroic. Horo included. Especially Horo. I would've been burnt to a crisp and possibly eviscerated several times if he hadn't been there to save me without permission. I also would've drowned, and we all know how bad that is." Oron nodded in agreement and Akami seemed impressed.

She looked at Horo. "Is this all true?" It was the first time she'd spoken directly to him. He blushed and looked away, flustered.

"W-well sort of. I-I mean, yeah, but Ryin was doing j-just fine without me. She-she could've managed. Well, except the drowning part." He gave a nervous laugh. "Of course not the drowning part, she can't swim..."

"I can too! I just choose not to, I've already told you."

"R-right. Sorry. B-but Ryin's right-I shouldn't be saving her-she didn't ask. So I guess I'm not a-a very good hero then. Well, I'm not. M-most of the time it's just luck."

"I don't think that's true." Akami said gently.

He bowed his head modestly. "No. It is. Ryin's the real hero, without her we'd be nowhere. I'm no good. I'm not brave at all-I'm a coward."

"A coward? I don't think that's true..."

"No it is. What I've done, you'd be so ashamed princess."

"What the hell're you talking about Horo? You're no coward." Ryin butted in.

Akami nodded in agreement. "I can't believe any of this. Ryin has faith in you and if she says you're not a coward than I don't believe you. And from what I've heard, you saved her life-that's got to count for something. No coward would do that."

Horo flushed a deep red at her words. "T-thank y-you pr-princess. Um, i-if y-you'll excuse me I, uh, n-need to um, go find, uh...my um, ah...I'll be r-right back." He stammered and hurried out of the study.

"That was odd." Ryin observed.

Deren watched him go, suspicious. "I'll go help him look." And he too left.

Ryin watched the door swing shut after her brother. "Did I miss something?" She looked over at Akami who was looking longingly after the boys. She let out a soft sigh and a blush spread across her cheeks. "Akami?"

"You have a strange friend. Does he normally act like that?" Oron asked, unaware of his sister's reaction.

"No. That's why this is so strange. Normally he wouldn't be caught dead giving me all the credit for something he helped with... that and I think the words 'Ryin is right' aren't in his vocabulary. He must be sick or something."

"Will he be okay?" Akami asked worriedly.

Ryin turned to her and looked at her strangely. "Why?...You do know I'm not serious, right?"

She blushed and looked away. "Y-yes of course I knew that."

Oron was beginning to suspect something now too. "Akami are you alright? You've been acting strangely ever since Horo walked in."

"You call _that_ strange? Have you _seen_ the way Horo was acting? He was reduced to a blubbering idiot, that's what I call strange!"

"I'm okay Oron, you mustn't worry. But he is terribly handsome, isn't he..."

"Who? Horo?" She merely nodded, dreamily staring at the last place he was seen. Ryin burst out laughing her body shuddering violently. "You think Horo-AHAHAHA but he's all-HAHAHAHAHAHAHA" Tears were actually running down her cheeks and she was holding onto her stomach in a pitiful attempt to make her sides stop hurting. Every time she tried to stop she'd think of what Akami had said and started up again. Somewhere in between the tears and the laughter she caught sight of Akami's face. "Oh wait you were serious. BWAHAHAHAHA THAT MAKES IT EVEN FUNNIER AHAHAHAHA"

"So what if I am serious?" Akami said defiantly. "What's so bad about that?"

Ryin took a moment to compose herself before answering. "I just think it's rather strange. After all I can't really see him like that. You really think he's attractive? Why?"

Akami blushed and looked down again. "Just look at him! Beautiful! His hair is as black and as gorgeous as ebony. His face is battle-hardened but his eyes show such kindness. His jaw is perfectly chiseled, but not quite angular. It resembles that of a god, or angel. And his arms! Even through his coat I could tell of their strength, and yet he seems so gentle. I wonder if he can be Hyrule's hero yet at the same time be sensitive enough to love. With that beautiful-" She went on dreamily.

"WOAH! You said love!" she turned to Oron. "You head it too, didn't you? Tell me you heard her say it!"

"Oh I heard it." He said, nodding vigorously.

Meanwhile out in the hallway Deren was broaching a similar conversation with Horo. "What was that? You were acting so strangely, what's up?"

Horo paced back and forth, wringing his hands. "I-I don't know. Nothing. Everything. I've never felt this way before, I don't know if it's normal or not."

Deren surveyed him a moment then smirked. "Ooh you've got it bad."

"What? What have I got?"

"Akami?"

Horo sighed. "I've never seen anything so beautiful in my life. No one has ever made me feel this way before."

Deren looked at him strangely. "You've only known her for like, five minutes."

"But they were a magical five minutes."

"You just sat there spluttering and acting awkward for that time. So it couldn't of been that magical."

"Well they were...for me anyways. Of course just for me, why would she even think for a second about someone as lowly and unstable as me?"

Deren stared at him. "Unstable? What are you, insane? Wait 'til Ryin hears she was right about you!"

Horo turned on him. "No! You can't tell Ryin about this conversation-she'd make fun of me for it."

"Trust me, I think Ryin has you pretty well figured out."

Horo hung his head. "I'm never gonna live this down."

"Why should you care what Ryin thinks? Imagine her reaction if Akami ends up feeling the same way as you."

"She could never. She wouldn't. Who would? Especially a glorious princess like her. She has to marry a prince in order to rule. Even if we could be together, she could never love someone like me. She's so beautiful and I'm hideous. Beauty and the beast. There's also the large possibility that I could die every other day."

"Why wouldn't she like you? As far as men go, you're pretty handsome-NOT hideous, despite whatever Ryin says. You're a good swordsman and you have my sister so there's only a very slight chance of you getting killed on duty. And besides, that just proves how brave you are." He tried to catch Horo's gaze, but he just looked away. "And as for needing to marry a prince, she could always step down. She's also the last one on the ruling list, after her brother, come to think of it. She might not even get to rule she's so far down!" He thought for a moment. "You're pretty brave-you're like a hero-you could still be considered noble enough to marry. That's what happened with my parents. My mom was a princess and my dad was the hero of the land so they got married and are kind of sort of ruling...technically. You could do that."

Horo turned on him angrily. "I'm not your father! He's brave and noble and deserves a princess wife like Reena-I'm nothing like that. I'm no hero. I'm a coward and a horrible person."

"Why do you keep saying that? From what I've seen so far, you're a hero. You save both Ryin _and_ Carei and saved Hyrule from countless monsters and demons. I think that qualifies as brave. I'm sure most girls would want someone like you-so why can't Akami be one of them?" Horo didn't respond. "So get back in there and talk to her-you won't know for sure until you find out."

"Akami, you can't do this. I forbid you."

She looked up at her brother defiantly. "Why not? I came here looking for a husband, why couldn't it be him?"

"You're-"

"You came here looking for a husband and you chose Horo!? What the _hell's _wrong with you!?"

Oron silenced her with a flick of his wrist. "Shh! Akami, you came here so Lera could set you up with a prince, not one of Ryin's warrior friends. If you want to rule you're going to have to marry a prince."

"Fine then. I don't want to rule."

"You can't just give up ruling because you think you might love Horo." Ryin blurted. "That's absurd!"

"Ryin's right. One of us needs to marry soon and be prepared to take over the country at a moment's notice."

"Then why don't you do it then?" Akami asked angrily as she rose out of her chair.

"You know why I can't do that." Oron growled through gritted teeth, taking a step towards his sister and glaring down at her.

She took another step towards him so they were only a couple inches apart. "Well maybe you should-"

The argument was broken up by the two boys returning from the hallway. They stepped back and looked away from each other. "Hey," Deren said, raising a hand in greeting "did we miss something?"

"No." Growled Oron. He shot a look at Horo who was looking down steadily.

"Did you find what you were looking for Horo?" Asked Ryin, smirking. She could tell something was up and she was going to find out what.

He met her eyes steadily. "Yeah I did."

Her eyes narrowed. "Good."

Silence.

Deren looked at everyone. No one seemed to be meeting each other's eyes. "So...I never got around to asking before but, to what do we owe the honor of the Guardadian royalty?"

"We're not royalty. We are about as much of royalty as you are. Like you we just live in the castle." Replied Akami.

"That, and if _one _of us" he shot a look at his sister "gets married, we take over for our uncle when he passes away." Akami shook her head in disapproval at him.

"Yes, but why're you here?"

"You think Termina's the only country that civil warring right now?" Akami said wryly.

"Guardia's civil warring right now?"Asked Ryin, suddenly interested.

"Well, not really. It's mainly our psychotic uncle that's doing all the attacking and generally causing problems." Oron explained calmly, as if a psychotic uncle trying to destroy the world was an average, everyday topic.

"I thought you said your uncle's the king." Horo asked.

"Oh no, wrong uncle." Akami corrected. "There're two of them-they're twins. The older one-uncle Logan-is the king, his younger brother-Crawe-is evil and is planning on destroying, then ruling Guardia, and then moving on to the world."

"Uh-huh. And how exactly do you fit in all this?"

"Well...there're the three siblings. As I said, my uncle Logan is the oldest-which makes him king, he's closely followed by Crawe and then a couple years younger is our mother, Andrea. Understand so far?" She spoke to all the Hylians now. They all nodded. "Good, 'cause this is gonna get a whole lot more confusing. Logan never married nor had kids, so if he dies ownership should technically pass to Crawe-who also has no kids. My uncle Logan can, if he wants, choose his own heir if need be. So he did. This isn't normally done since people are usually okay with their successors. So if nobody screwed with the order of things then we wouldn't be in this mess. It would go: Uncle Logan, Crawe, mom, Oron, his kids then, or if he had no kids, me and then my kids...if I had kids." She gave a quick look in Horo's direction. He blushed. "But he messed with everything and ruined the order. Crawe has been somewhat unstable and 'off' for the longest time-since before we were born. He believes in the Dark Gods instead of Guardia's normal gods. So he associates with dark magic and it's changing him. He's trying to use it to rule the country. So my uncle Logan changed the line so it would bypass him and go straight to my mom should he die. Unfortunately, a couple years back my mom died of a similar sickness that killed Ryin's grandparents. Well with her gone the heir position automatically reverts back to Crawe. And herein lies the problem. Crawe wants to rule, but as long as Uncle Logan is king he can't. So he's started a war with the rest of us, hoping that it'll end up killing uncle Logan one way or another. Either that or he'll just kill him himself. Uncle Logan knows this; he knows that he's the only thing in the way of Crawe's rule, so he changed things up again. Here's where we fit in. Uncle Logan gave us an ultimatum. Whoever gets married first is the new heir, but it has to be to a royal so we can rule. This also has to happen rather soonish in case he dies in an attack or something. We were all ready to go as soon as he told us his plan. Oron had his lover and they were set to be married. The thing is, we were trying to pull this entire thing of in secret, behind Crawe's back. Well he found out from one of his spies and he launched an attack trying to kill us. He failed, obviously, but due to some..." She shot a look at Oron, whose eyes were blank and unfocused on a point somewhere in the distance. He was completely lost to his memories. "complications we had to abandon our plan. In other words, we had no more potential heir. It was just us again and we were numbers one and two on Crawe's to-kill list. So Uncle Logan sent us away here to meet up with Lera so she could set me up with some prince, also so we can be safe from Crawe's attacks. And that is the story of Guardia's war started by my uncle."

Silence.

"Well that about sums it up. You'd of thought that we'd of heard of this, what with Guardia being the next country over and all." Ryin said, slightly appalled.

"Oh no." Akami shook her head. "This entire thing was kept secret. The wrong people hearing about this could mean the end of the reign of light in Guardia. If Uncle Logan dies it's all over. We're just back up, kind of like Guardia's trump cards. Of course that means the weight of the country is completely on our shoulders...our and Lera's, since she's like our matchmaker."

"Well I hate to break it to you, but she won't even know you're here yet. It'll be awhile 'til you see her. Of course if you're desperate for a husband you could always have Deren."

Akami grimaced and shot another look at Horo who had an odd expression on his face. One of pain mixed with a twang of jealousy. Akami tried to play off the Deren comment. "Sorry Ryin, but you can't get rid of your brother that easily."

Everyone laughed. "Nah I like him. If I were to get rid of anyone it'd be Horo." He froze. Ryin cast a glance over at him. "Do ya want him?" she smirked.

Their reactions were almost identical. Both faces flushed a deep red and they both started spluttering madly at the offer, waving their hands as if to ward off any assumptions. "W-w-w-why w-would I-I-I w-wa-want H-Horo-o?"

Horo gave a laugh that was approximately two octaves above his usual. "Ahahaha... Y-you can't g-get rid of me t-that e-easily. Hahaha...ha...ha..."

There was an awkward silence save for Ryin's attempted repressed laughter. Akami and Horo wouldn't look at each other, or at Ryin. Deren sat there shaking his head at Horo's stupidity and Oron just looked mad and extremely displeased with Akami.

It was Deren who spoke first. "So, welcome back to Hyrule guys." Everyone let out a sigh.

***astrix astrix astrix***

It was the next day. Horo left his room, bored, in hopes of finding Ryin so they could spar or something similar. There was also a part of him that hoped to see Akami around, but there was an even greater, more dominant part of him, that shuttered at the thought of seeing her. This was the part of him that caused him to shiver and fidget in her presence, the part that turned his legs to jelly and made him want to run far, far away-back to Ikana. And he knew if he were to see her in the halls, that second part would take over and send him fleeing away. He was a coward, and he knew it.

Horo sighed. He walked through the winding corridors. Ryin hadn't been in her room, or the study. He hoped she hadn't gone off to Shaoran's; otherwise he'd be bored for at least the rest of the day. Her visits there were notoriously long. Maybe if she had gone, he'd go spar with Deren. The eldest Teris brother wasn't as good as his sister, but he did have talent. Just then, footsteps were heard from down the hall. He looked up from his reverie. There, at the other end of the hallway, was the person he was looking forward to and dreading seeing the most-Akami. Immediately he turned around and took off in the opposite direction to avoid her seeing him.

"Horo?" She'd seen him!

He froze, considering his options before turning slowly to face her. "Prin-cess." He said choppily, giving a short bow.

"Um, h-how are you?" Now that she had his attention, she had nothing to say. Like him, she had been dreading seeing him in the halls.

"Good." Great, his big plan was to use monosyllabic answers. There's no way she'd like him now.

"That's...good."

There was an awkward silence between then where neither would meet the other's eyes.

_Say something, say something, say something! _Horo's inner voice screamed, where a larger (and exponentially louder) voice was telling him to _flee, flee, FLEEEEEEE! _"Um," was all he could manage.

"Yeah..."

An idea popped into his head and he grasped at it. "So, you-you're new here to the castle, i-if you want I could, you know maybe show you around? Maybe. If you...want. You-you don't have to of course."

She giggled. "You do know, I spent a slight portion of my childhood here, right?"

He mentally slapped himself for his stupidity. _Damnit! You idiot! Of course she's been here before!_

"But..." His heart fluttered in hope and he looked up. "I might of forgotten some things, help me refresh my memory?" She asked hopefully.

He couldn't believe his luck. She was actually willing to spend time with him! _Him!_ He smiled back at her and offered her his arm. She giggled again and took it. Then away they went, both of them happier than they'd been in several years.

While Horo and Akami were busy bonding, Horo's previous point of interest was hiding out in the Hall of the Knights of the Imperial Realm. Hours after Horo's and Akami's encounter Ryin finally came out of hiding, believing she was safe. Due to the massive increase in attacks recently she was extremely behind in her lessons and due to the fact that it was just her, her extra classes would be private, singular lessons with Sir Lethan, which was, not a pleasant thought. So she had been craftily avoiding them in any way possible. Today's plan was to hide in the last place he would ever look for her-a place of learning, somewhere they had been recently studying. That and it was an extremely obscure and out of the way place that no one ever went to except for the weekly cleaning. It was also really pretty up there, making hiding surprisingly bearable.

Ryin wandered down the spiral staircase, contemplating her next order of business. She wanted to go find Horo and maybe spar or bother him about his obvious crush on Akami, but there was always the possibility of being seen by Sir Lethan in the halls then getting dragged off to learn about dead kings and such. So her best bet was to leave the castle, maybe go visit with Shaoran. But the flaw in this plan was the obvious-Shaoran being too busy to entertain her. So now she was stuck. She considered both options before finally deciding on the former, as making fun of Horo was much higher on her 'to-do' list than getting ignored by Shaoran. So she went off in search of him, calling out in the hallways, looking into rooms he might be in and checking all his usual haunts. But he was nowhere to be found. The training hall was looking like the best bet so she headed there. He had to be there, if not, then where was he?

She strode into the training room only to find, not Horo, but Oron practicing. He swung his sword again and again at the wooden post used for training at the far end of the room. Its surface was already scarred with his apparent, rigorous training. Long gouges and deep notches covered its surface, not to mention the multiple scratches. It appeared he'd been there for hours. She watched until he stood up straight and wiped his brow.

"You give 'rigorous' a totally new definition."

He looked up, just noticing her. "I didn't hear you come in."

She walked over to him. "If you were hylian you would've heard."

He cocked an eyebrow. "Oh really?"

She nodded. "Mhm. Hylians have better hearing than humans-why else do you think we have these stupid, abnormally long ears?"

"I thought you were all mutants."

"No, it's so we can 'hear the goddesses' apparently. Humans don't normally pray to our goddesses so you have no need to hear them-so you get rounded ears."

"Uh-huh. There's something in your tone that makes me think you think you're better than me, but I choose not to call you on it as it would result in a large argument."

"That would be wise."

"So, any particular reason why you're interrupting my training?"

"Yes. Two. One, you looked like you needed a break-seriously, you're going to kill yourself, you're as bad as Shaoran working. Logan can wait." His face darkened and he turned away. "And two, I went looking for Horo and I found you instead."

He looked back at her. "You're looking for Horo?" He said dryly.

She nodded. "I've looked everywhere."

"Come with me." He started walking off, sheathing his sword as he went. Ryin, not knowing what was going on, followed him.

They walked down through multiple hallways until they got to the far side of the castle. Oron lead her to one of the rooms. He held out an arm, motioning for her to open the closed door. "Here? What's he doing in here?" A thought crossed her mind and she grimaced. "Oh goddesses. No way!"

It took him a moment to catch on. "No! You-no! Ryin." He looked sternly down at her. She shrugged sheepishly. He shook his head and opened the door himself. Once inside he led the way over to the balcony. "There."

"Here?" She went outside and looked into the gardens below. The sound of laughter floated up from below. She looked down, over the railing, trying to find the source of the noise. She spotted it instantly. Almost directly below her Horo and Akami were sitting in the shade of a tree talking and laughing about interesting bits of their lives. What amazed her the most was that Horo _actually_ looked happy and he was _actually_ laughing. It was the happiest she'd seen him since they'd met. In fact, once she stopped and thought about it, it was the first time she'd ever seen him laugh, like a real _genuine _laugh. It was bizarre seeing it.

"Wh-what!? No way!"

Oron walked up beside her. "That was my reaction too."

She looked at him. "I hope you know that I am totally against this relationship. Not because he's happy-no, I'm grateful for that, but because it's just weird. I've known her for so long, and despite it all I've become pretty good friends with Horo. I can't really see this work out. He's too...rough and ragged for her. This could get complicated..._very_ complicated."

"Well, that and, unless he turns out to be a prince-which I highly doubt-there is no way they can take this relationship any further. There are so many things wrong with this entire thing."

"That's an understatement." They both sighed. "Awwww! Now who'm I gonna hang out with? I was kinda counting on Horo being my entertainment for the rest of the afternoon and since he's on a date... GAH!... Oron...?"

"No. I'm busy. I took enough of a break. Go find some other means of entertainment." With that, he turned and left.

Ryin sighed and hung her head. "Shaoran's it is then." Then, with one last look at the happy couple she headed off.

After dawdling and taking her time wandering through Hyrule Market, Ryin finally made her way to Shaoran's house. Instead of checking the house, where she knew he wouldn't be, she headed out back to the fields. She was in for the biggest surprise of her life! There, on a perfectly good day, warm, bright, sunny-perfect for working in the fields, Shaoran the workaholic was nowhere to be found. This was confounding. Maybe he was sick, or maybe-the more likely possibility-Nathalia was sick and Shaoran was checking on her. She _had _been feeling rather down lately. So Ryin turned and headed back into the house in search of her friend.

She was nearly knocked flat however, by very flustered looking Shaoran pulling on a coat as she was just about to open the front door "Shaoran wha-?"

"Ryin! There you are! I was just about to come see you."

She stared at him. "Are you feeling okay? Because I thought you just said that you were coming to visit me-you never come visit me! I'm the one that does the visiting! And why aren't you working?"

"I was," he said breathlessly "but I had to come see you-I have news."

"News? Ooh! Does that mean you're willing to come adventuring with me?" She didn't wait for an answer. "Perfect! Let's go!" She grabbed his arm and started pulling him in the direction of the horses.

He yanked his arm out of her grasp. "Ryin listen to me! This is important." The urgency in his voice made her turn. "I have news about your parents."

She paled. The world started spinning around her. "My...parents...?" A if she could barely comprehend the words.

His next words made her delicate world shatter and come crashing down around her. Its pieces falling around her as she spun and whirled into oblivion. "It's your parents-they're losing the rebellion in Termina-they can only hold out a couple more days."

It was over. If they lost, they were dead. Meaning Ryin herself, Ryin the newly labeled orphan, would have all of her worst nightmares come true.

**Oh no Link and Reena! Ooh cliffhanger! We'll come back to this next chapter. Anyways, poor Ryin, now being left out by the awkwardness that is Horo/Akami. And poor Horo! Being so in love, but he cant have her since she has to marry a prince. What will he do? Honestly the Guardadian's lives are so incredibly screwed up right now. Things aren't going well for anyone right now. **

**Akami and Oron aren't my characters btw. Neither is Horo for that matter. They were all creayed by my co-author Yasha-Kyouran, who has been giving me some help. I probably wouldn't have a sequel if he hadn't given me the idea for Horo. But yeah, some of these are his characters, I just gave them life. Anyways yeah, this'll be a bit different as you already know, from Hidden Truths in this way. But I promise it'll be good. Promise.  
*Sorry about this edit. Oh God I'm so embarassed right now...**


	7. 6 Mistakes, Greetings and Backtracking

**Update! Yaaay! Hokay, so this took me awhile, but yeah Link and Reena are back. Huzzah! Also there'll be a flash of nostalgia, incase, you know, you were curious aout what some of the Hidden Truths minor characters were doing in their spare time ;) Onwards to the story!**

_**Chapter Six: Mistakes, Greetings and Backtracking**_

"HORO! HORO!" Ryin screamed, tearing through the castle, dragging Shaoran along behind her. She had to hurry and find him so they could hurry up and get to Termina to save her parents. "HORO!"

"_What_? By the goddesses, you are so _loud_! Can't this wait?" Horo complained as he and Akami rounded the corner into their hallway.

Ryin spun to face him. "Horo! By the goddesses there you are! This can't wait; we have to go-now!"

"Go? Go where? Can't you see I'm busy?"

"Your date with Akami can wait." Akami flushed at the word 'date'. "We have to go to Termina immediately. I'll explain on the way." She grabbed his arm and tried to tow him out the door.

"No." He said defiantly, planting his foot firmly on the ground. "I'm doing something important now-you can't just whisk me away to Termina without reason. I'm not moving from this spot until you give me an explanation." He crossed his arms.

She turned to face him angrily. Her eyes flashed dangerously. "Fine! But we really have to go! If my parents are dead by the time we get there I will actually light you on fire."

"Your parents?"

"Yes! My parents are in danger!"

"Ryin, I'm pretty sure your parents can take care of themselves-they don't need us to save them."

"But they're losing the rebellion! The rebel forces are about to take over and my parents'll be killed! We have to go help them!"

"Where did you hear this?"

"Shaoran told me!"

"Shaoran told you?" He asked skeptically, his eyes flitting to Shaoran. "And where did Shaoran hear this?"

"I don't know! Ask him yourself! He's right there! Can we go now? This is kinda urgent."

"Wait, so, Shaoran told you that your parents' lives were in danger and the Terminian rebellion was about to be lost and you didn't once ask where he got his information from?" Horo probed.

Ryin threw up her hands, exasperated. "Of course not! I was too worried about my parents to care, and honestly-I still don't even care. What matters is my parents are going to die and you're sitting around questioning my sources."

"What if he's wrong?"

"I trust him! He wouldn't lie!"

"Not Shaoran! What if the person who told him lied?" He turned to Shaoran. "Who told you about this?"

"I dunno, some man."

"Some random guy and you believed him?"

"He said he knew you!" Shaoran said defensively.

"What? Horo's has a point. Some random guy came up to you and said that he knew us and that my parents were in mortal danger and you believed him just like that?" Ryin interjected, suspicion creeping into her voice.

"No! He came to me and said he knew you two and that I needed to deliver a message to either of you. I said I didn't believe him and he started telling me a whole bunch of things only you would know. Like the promise Horo made me-about keeping Ryin safe, and how me and Ryin met. He knew that Horo had a giant eagle as a pet named Mist and that Ryin's favorite colours are scarlet, indigo and kelly green. He seemed to know you guys quite well so I believed him. He told me about your parents and about the rebellion and that I had to pass on the message to you guys."

"This man...did he have a name?" Horo asked slowly.

"No. He said _you'd_ know who he was Horo."

His eyes narrowed. He had a sneaking suspicion who this strange man was. "Describe him."

"Describe him? Well...he was pretty strange looking. Tall, skinny, with long black hair tied up. He wore lots of black-shirt, pants, cloak. And he looked older than me. Uh, yeah, that's about it...oh yeah! He had a long scar across the left side of his face and silver eyes. Does that help?"

Horo scowled and turned away angrily. "I knew it. He _was_ lying. If either of you seeing anyone who matches that description, you tell me, okay? And don't believe anything he tells you." he grabbed Akami's hand and pulled her away down the hallway.

"Wait!" Ryin called after him. "How do you know he's lying?"

"Trust me-he is."

She considered him a moment. "You know him, don't you?" He was silent so she pressed onwards. "Who is he Horo? And how do you know he's lying?"

Still silence from Horo. Ryin waited until at last he said: "His name's Shindou." Ryin looked at him expectantly; willing him to continue-she wasn't disappointed. "He came to me a couple weeks ago giving me cryptic messages about the path we're on and all the different ones we could take. He seems to know stuff about us that we've never said aloud before in our lives. He said he'll be watching us and'll give us information. I don't trust him at all though. Basically, he talks in riddles. He's too mysterious to trust, at least not until we get a better idea of him-but don't hold your breath, he hates when people ask him questions."

"So...just because he knows some stuff about you and is quite possibly stalking us, you don't trust him? Where's the logic in that!?"

Horo looked at her strange. "Where _isn't_ there logic in that? I'm sorry, but someone who's stalking me and knows all my secrets isn't that high on my list of people I'll willingly trust. I know you're worried about your parents Ryin, but this guy can't be trusted. And besides, if anyone can take care of themselves it's Link and Reena."

Ryin sighed. "I hope you're right."

***astrix astrix astrix***

A couple days later Ryin sat at her desk, tapping her pen against the wood, absently staring off into space. It had been a slow week. Shaoran's false alarm a couple days pervious had been the most exciting thing so far. Under normal circumstances that would be considered a good thing, but now with the complications excitement was a good thing. Horo was spending all his time with Akami and would probably go about spending the rest of his time with her until there was a major emergency. It was impossible to pry them apart.

Ryin sighed and looked down at the partially finished letter. She had tried to write to her parents, asking how the rebellion was going and if they needed help. However it was awkward and difficult to write. What was she supposed to write? _Dear mum and dad, some mysterious man who's stalking us told Shaoran that you guys are losing the Terminian rebellion, do you need me to hurt your pride and come help you out? Love Ryin._ They'd think she was insane. That and, their reaction would probably be the same as Horo's-thinking that Shindou was a big liar and completely untrustworthy. They were probably right after all, Shindou was pretty sketchy and there was no way Link and Reena would let the civil war get out of hand. No way... And yet...why was she so worried?

"Hey Ryin?" Ryin looked up as Nia and Nera poked their heads in the door. "Were we expecting anyone?"

"No, why?"

"Hm. Just thought we'd ask-a girl just rode past the first set of guards without much fuss. But I'm sure it's nothing." They said casually, walking out of the room.

Ryin sat up. "_What!?_" She jumped up and ran to the window. Sure enough, a woman on horseback rode up the dirt path to the second set of guards. Ryin couldn't see very well, but from what she could tell, the woman was fairly well received by the guards and was able to slip through without incident. Moments later she was off again, cantering towards the castle doors, her cloak and long brown ponytail flowing out behind her.

Ryin spun around and ran to the door only to smack face first into Deren. "Did you see? There's a girl who-" He said breathlessly.

"I know! I saw, I was heading to the throne room now."

Deren nodded and they both took off down the hallway. "Do you know who she is?" Ryin shook her head.

They rounded a corner. Teiry and Tallen were just exiting their rooms. They watched as their siblings came hurdling down the hall. "Ryin, there's a girl-"

"-who made it past the guards."

"She's coming up to the castle."

"Do you know her?" Both twins spoke in the same eerie unison Nia and Nera spoke with, but were considerably less snide with their comments.

"Yes I know and no, I don't know her!" Ryin called out as her and Deren charged past them.

They continued down several passageways, trying to find the quickest route to the throne room. Everyone they passed on the way down gave them weird looks. They hurdled down the stairs, skipping the last five or six, nearly taking out Horo who was walking up the stairs.

"Ryin? Wha-?"

"Official queen business, nothing to worry about!" She called over her shoulder as they ran past. He gave them the strangest look, but kept walking. He was used to Ryin doing utterly bizarre things.

They skidded to a halt in the throne room, both panting heavily. They had apparently arrived before their guest. Ryin walked over and began fixing her hair in a nearby suit of armour.

"What're you doing?" Deren asked.

"I just ran across the castle, my hair is a little messed up."

He laughed. "Yeah kind of."

She turned to him. "You're one to talk! Your hair is standing up on end!" She began fixing his hair and trying to make it lie flat before their guest arrived. He did the same to her.

Their preening was interrupted by the doors opening and a flustered looking girl ran in. They both turned at her entrance. She was tall and young, in about her early-twenties with long brown hair, tied back in a ponytail. She had on a bluish tunic with a cloak fastened to her shoulders. She seemed surprised to see the two of them already in the throne room. "Ryin!" She said warmly.

Ryin and Deren's mouths fell open in absolute shock. She was not who they were expecting. "Ella?" Ryin spluttered.

"_Ella?_" Deren echoed.

"Hey Deren, it's been awhile-not quite as long as your sister though, she _always_ comes to me when she sneaks of to Termina." Ella replied with a wink.

The royals were still flabbergasted, trying to comprehend what she was doing in their front entranceway. "What the hell are you doing here?" Ryin managed to splutter out.

"Oh right!" She mentally slapped herself for forgetting. Then her voice turned dark. "I'm here with a message for the two of you from your parents."

"Our parents? Why didn't they come themselves?" Deren demanded.

"They were busy."

"With what? We are so much more important-and we haven't seen them in forever!" Ryin complained.

"I know, I know, but you'll be seeing them soon-don't worry."

They sighed in relief. "How did you get past the guards? I didn't think they knew you well enough to let you through right away."

"Aha! I was hoping you'd ask that. I'm taking every opportunity to show this off." She produced a piece of folded up paper from an inside pocket. "First there's this-basically your parents gave me permission to go through. Normally that isn't enough and it involves much guard debating, thus being extremely time consuming. SO, I managed to con your dad into giving me some insurance-tada!" She took something else out of her pocket-Link's green hat. "I've been trying to steal this since your parents got there, but due to the rules of the game, it technically belongs to him. But it's mine now-until we get back that is."

"We?" Ryin echoed.

"Yes we!" Ella said brightly. "We're going together-all three of us. But we have to leave soon, as in, right now."

She was still confused. "Why?"

Ella's face darkened again. "Because your parents need help with some stuff. Things haven't been going too well with the war recently, they have to be in two places at once or else some bad stuff'll happen. So they finally broke down and asked for your help."

Ryin stared back at her blankly. "What?"

Ella sighed. "We don't have time for this Ryin, you heard me just fine-we're losing the war and your parents need you to help them get things back under their control."

Then suddenly, without warning Ryin started to laugh in the high-pitched, nervous way she did when she refused to believe something. "Ahahaha...you're joking! Haha...c'mon Ella..."

Ella stared at her, slightly offended. "Why would I even-I just came all the way from Termina! Who the hell would travel several days to come joke about something like that? Even joking about that is too cruel! I mean, who would even joke about something like that?"

Ryin's narrowed and she set her jaw before calling out angrily. "HORO! GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE-NOW!"

Moments later Horo came down the stairs to find a very angry Ryin glaring at him with her arms crossed. "Can I help you?"

"Yes you can." Ryin said with a sickeningly sweet voice. "This here is my friend Ella." She gave a small wave. "Ella? Why don't you tell Horo what you just told me?"

"Well...Ryin's parents are having some issues with the whole 'Termina civil war thing', it's not going too well for them and they need some help. So they sent me to come get Ryin and Deren to come help them beat the rebels."

Horo paled, his eyes flitted to Ryin. "So, Horo, the question now is, what are _you_ going to do about this? _You _are going to come up with a solution about how we're going to get through this. _You_ are going to come up with a way for my parents to beat down the rebels and keep everyone safe without either of them getting too seriously hurt. I'm placing this all on _your_ shoulders."

"Why me?"

"Why you? Why _you!_? Why the hell do you think!?" She was practically screaming now. "I'll tell you why, because _you_ said that Shindou was a big liar and that we shouldn't trust him. _You _said that my parents were doing just fine and that they didn't need my help. _You _just wasted three full days that could've been used for travelling and saving my parents. No, instead _you_ wanted to stay here so that _you _wouldn't have to leave Akami. Now _my_ parents are in danger and it's ALL YOUR FAULT!" Now she was yelling, as she spoke she got progressively closer and closer to him so by the end she was jabbing him in the chest with her index finger.

"I'm sorry! I didn't know! If you ride fast you'll still be able to reach them in time."

"If _I _ride fast? Oh no, this is _your _fault-you're coming with me. Pack your bags we're leaving in an hour."

"What?" He complained. "But I was going to-"

She whipped around, looking positively livid. "If the next words out of your mouth have _anything_ to do with Akami I'll personally cut off your arms and shove the down your throat-and yes, I'm dead serious. And if they die before we get there I'll kill you the exact same way they both died-only slower, and a thousand times more painful. So I suggest you hurry up and get packed, because I'm not a very patient person." Horo kept his mouth shut and did exactly as he was told. Ryin turned to her brother, who flinched thinking he'd be next in line for a verbal lashing. "You're in charge while we're gone. Normally you'd be there with me, but since this is Horo's mess he has to deal with it. I need someone I can trust on the throne." He nodded, very relieved. Ryin turned to Ella. "Do you feel up to making the journey back or should we wait a bit longer?"

"I'll be fine. We should leave as soon as possible."

"Perfect. See you in an hour." With that she darted upstairs to pack her bags.

***astrix astrix astrix***

About a week later Ryin, Horo and Ella rode into Clock Town. They had had to of taken the long way around because of check points around the border and it was much easier to avoid them all together. The horse hoofs clattered through East Clock Town square as they approached a small house in one of the side streets. They hopped down and tied up the horses outside the house.

Ella pushed open the front door. "I'll let you guys wash up and change clothes before I take you to my parents' house." Everyone followed her inside. "Hi! I'm home!" She called out to the seemingly empty house.

A young, handsome, dark haired man walked in from the kitchen. He smiled broadly when he saw Ella. "Hi, I missed you." He wrapped his arms around her waist and she leaned up to kiss him. When he let her go he turned to Ryin. "Hey Ryin, good to see you again."

She gave a small wave. "Hi Colin."

Ella disentangled herself from Colin's arms and turned to Horo. "Horo, this is my fiancé, Colin. Colin, this is Ryin's friend Horo-he's here to help Link and Reena." Colin nodded and held out a hand. They shook. "So, um, Ryin and Horo'll be staying here until Link and Reena have no more use for them." Colin nodded and Ella turned to the hylians. "I was kind of counting on Ryin and Deren to share a bed. I don't suppose-"

"NOT A CHANCE!" Ryin yelled. Everyone looked at her strangely, she backpedaled. "I just don't want his girlfriend to hate me. It's also kinda awkward, I mean, sharing a bed with Deren is bad enough."

Ella grimaced. "I thought you'd say something like that. Um, well..." she looked to Colin for assistance.

"Its fine Ella, one of us can take the couch." Horo offered.

"You mean _you'll _be taking the couch. After all-it _is_ your fault that you're here and Deren's not." Ryin shot.

He sighed. "Fine. _I'll _take the couch."

Ryin smirked. "But not now. Now we have to go see my parents. Right?" She turned to Ella hopefully.

"Don't you want to wash up and eat first?" Ryin shook her head. Ella sighed. "Well _I_ do, I just rode all the way to Hyrule and back again while dodging rebel checkpoints all in less than two weeks, I'm slightly tired. Let me wash up, eat and have a quick nap then we can go." Ryin sighed but reluctantly agreed.

A couple hours later when they were all fed and rested Ella brought them over to the other side of East Clock Town where Link and Reena had apparently set up base. Ryin was practically bouncing with nervous excitement as they walked.

They stopped at a small house. Ella pushed right in, calling out as she did so. "We're here!"

They walked into the kitchen. The small group at the table looked up as they walked in. "Mum! Dad!" Ryin skipped over to them.

They greeted her with big smiles and hugged her. "Good to see you! We missed you. How've you been?"

Ryin was all smiles as she greeted her parents. She talked animatedly with her hands, babbling about unimportant things. Link held up a hand. "One sec Ryin-Terin, do you mind...?"

An older, grey-haired Terin smiled. "Not at all, not at all. We needed a break anyways. You can take the living room if you want to talk."

Link nodded his thanks as Ryin towed him into the other room. Horo, feeling awkward, followed slightly behind them. Ryin led them both to the couch while she took the nearby armchair. Horo stood just behind her, his hands resting on the chair's back. Both Link and Reena's eyes zeroed in on him. "Then there was this one time Teiry-"

"Who's your friend?" Link interrupted.

"Who? Oh, him. That's Horo. Don't concern yourselves with him, he's not important."

"Thanks Ryin." Horo said, rolling his eyes.

"He's been kinda, sorta helping me with saving the world, of course I don't really _need _help, it's just nice to have someone to talk to sometimes. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about dad."

Link and Reena shared a look. Then Link spoke directly to Horo. "You better not get in the way."

"In the way? Of what?"

"Ryin and Shaoran's love affair! If you even so much as think about trying to win her over, then you'll have to deal with us first. They are and will be in love as soon as they both stop being stubborn and admit it. We're not having you jeopardize that."

Ryin covered her face and groaned loudly. "Oh dad...there're so many things wrong with what you just said..."

Horo groaned too. "No, really, me and Ryin aren't like that at all. We're only friends."

"Sort of... And besides, even if I did like Horo-which I don't-I wouldn't have a chance with him since he's too absorbed in Akami."

Horo glared at her. "Not true. But believe me, there's no way in hell I'd ever get between her and Shaoran like that. Anyone with eyes could see they're madly, madly in love with each other. It'd be stupid to ruin something like that." He shot back at her.

She glared up at him, hands on hips. "We are _not_ together for the love of Farore! Honestly! Nor will we ever be. So why don't you all just drop it?"

"Oh shut up Ryin." Reena interrupted before it could escalate further. Ryin opened her mouth to retort, but Reena cut her off again. "What's this about Akami?"

"The prince and princess of Guardia have come to Hyrule to meet with Queen Lera. Their country is in danger and it is required that one of them-" Horo said professionally.

"Oh shut up."Ryin scoffed. "You sound like an idiot. Akami and Oron came for a visit because Guardia is in the middle of a war and one of them needs to marry soon so they can take over. Auntie Lera's supposed to set Akami up with someone. Which is bad news for Horo since they're both in love with each other, but he's not a prince so they can't get married."

"Does Lera know this?" Link asked.

"Probably not."

"Wonderful. What a nice surprise when she does find out. So, have you been keeping Hyrule safe for us?"

Ryin changed her tone to one of excitement. "Yes! Me and Horo have been dealing with all the problems that come along. He's actually pretty handy to have around sometimes."

"What kind of problems does that entail?"

Horo answered for her. "A giant skeleton, a demon-centered storm demon, we did a routine trip of all the temples-"

Ryin's hand shot up in the air and she waved it around frantically. "Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Guess what? Guess what?"

"What?"

She rolled up her sleeve and proudly offered her arm to her father. He examined the large, reddish, almost healed, yet still sort of raw wound on her upper arm. "What happened?"

"I had a dodongo calling!" She answered excitedly.

Link grimaced and Reena laughed. "I pity you. Now if only we could get your mother to deal with one... Then she could understand our pain."

"Oh that's right, mum you never dealt with one, did you?"

Reena shook her head. "Nope. Your father always got called when I wasn't with him." She paused, thinking. "In fact... that how we met. He was heading off to Death Mountain when he first decided to stalk me."

Link rolled his eyes and sighed. "I wasn't stalking you. We were just going in the same direction. That's all."

Reena waved a hand. "Whatever, Stalker."

"Whatever Thief." He shot back. "Anyways, I thought the gorons were dealing with their own dodongo problems now."

"This one was a really big one. And Darunia's son-the one he named after you thinks that we should continue the tradition."

"What tradition?"

"Well, my father-the hero- helped out his father-their leader. Now, he thinks it's only fair that my father's hero successor-me-should help out his father's successor-him-in his time of need. Meaning, when large dodongo move into their city and they don't do anything about it for months and months, letting it grow bigger and bigger, I have to chase it out, without any weaponry. I'm pretty sure this one was bigger than any given one you had to deal with. And I had to do it all by myself without a sword."

Horo looked at Reena. "Like you, Ryin got her call the one time I was off doing something else." Reena smirked.

"But anyways. My life is boring, how has fight for liberty been going? I hear you need our help?"

"Yeah, we just need to be two places at once so we decided to recruit you and Deren. Er, you and Horo. It's only a small job, so you can leave again when it's done."

Ryin opened her mouth to comment but Horo beat her to it, echoing her thoughts. "Wouldn't it be easier if we were to stay? We could help with everything, I'm sure the rebellion would go much smoother and it would make your life a whole lot easier. We _want_ to help."

Link smiled at him. "Thanks for the offer, and I'm sure you'd be great, but what we really need is someone to help Hyrule while we're gone."

"Deren can do it!" Ryin suggested.

"Deren can rule, but I can't really see him fighting monsters and such-that's your job."

"We're doing just fine ourselves." Reena added. "It's only this one situation. If we mess this up, the entire operation could be ruined and everything we've worked for, destroyed."

"We need you two to go to the gorons while we go negotiate with the gerudo. They're both planning an attack around the same time and there's no way for us to do both. The gorons are upset with the hylians in Clock Town for breaking trade routes with them and are feeling ignored. The gerudo on the other hand, are going after the zoras. They want their land and all their jewels and stuff, the gerudo aren't really concerned with this war, but if the chance arises they'll move in and try to take over the country."

"Has anyone tried to take over Ikana yet?" Horo asked, seemingly lost in thought.

"No. But I can't see why anyone would want to." Reena answered. "It's empty, save for that dragon, and there're no resources or anything that anyone would want. The only thing there are garos and no one wants to deal with them. Plus they're all afraid it haunted." Horo nodded.

"Why don't me and mum go to see the gerudo and dad and Horo go see the gorons. Dad has had multiple dealing with the gorons in the past and me and mum're both girls so we'll be better received."

"Because you can't swim. I don't want you to slip and fall in, then make me jump in and save you. So you're going with Horo and you're father's coming with me."

Ryin was about to protest when Horo cut her off. "What do you need us to do?"

"Just try to convince them not to attack Clock Town. Tell them that the trade routes are going to be mended. I know Ryin's good at twisting her words into a colourful tale in order to achieve something, so that's the other main reason why we're sending her." Link explained.

"So, why did you need two of us? I'm pretty sure you only need one person to negotiate."

"This could get messy. I want you to have backup in case you get attacked on your way up there or the gorons decide not to listen to you."

"But won't they think more than one person is kinda aggressive? They might think we don't trust them."

"No Ryin, your parents have a point. I know your pride is saying that you could do it alone, but you might regret that decision when you're left bleeding and freezing in the snow halfway up Snowhead."

"Fine! But I _can_ do this myself." Ryin said, exasperated. "So, go up Snowhead, calm down the gorons, re-establish trade routes, come back home. Have I got all that?"

"Yup."

"Cool. Are we doing this today or tomorrow?"

"We thought tomorrow."

"Oh, thank the goddesses. I thought I'd have to travel half way to Hyrule again."

"No, you can rest. Plus it's getting late and Termina's not the safest place at night."

"Okay, we'll meet back here first thing tomorrow, yeah?"

"Yup. You guys are staying at Ella's, right? Well maybe she can-"

Anita stuck her head around the corner, interrupting him. "Dinner's ready, whenever you are."

Link turned and smiled warmly at her. "Thanks Anita." He turned back to everyone else. "Tomorrow, first thing?"

"Tomorrow." Everyone agreed.

Later that night when they were sitting alone in his room Link stared out of the window deep in thought. Reena came over to him and sat down in a nearby chair. "What's up? You've been acting off."

"That was strange."

"What?"

"Ryin and her friend."

"Ryin has a track record of strange friends. And Horo himself is pretty strange. I mean look at him!" She thought for a second. "Do you think he always has a scowl on his face?"

"No..." He said distantly.

"No?" She echoed. "What do you mean _no_? I think that's all he knows how to do!"

"No, I'm mean, yeah he couldn't smile even if he tried, but that's not what I was thinking."

"Then what were you thinking?" Reena pressed.

"I dunno, I've been trying to put my finger on it, but he looks almost familiar."

"Familiar?"

He nodded then snapped his fingers. "Atia!"

"Who's that? One of your admirers?"

He gave her an unimpressed look. "No. The queen of Ikana."

Reena raised her eyebrows. "How do they fit in together?"

"Their eyes."

"I've really only met her once-at our wedding-but I'm pretty sure her eyes weren't that cold or tormented."

"No, just the shape and the colour. And the black hair. Just tiny things. I'm sure I'm only thinking that because of the long black hair."

"Uh-huh. From what I remember she was slight and pretty. Very delicate looking and pale skin for an Ikanian. They are nothing alike."

He shook his head, as if to clear the thought. "It's just the eyes. Just the eyes..." He said, lost in thought as he looked out the window in Ikana's general direction.

***astrix astrix astrix***

Early the next day Ryin and Horo set out for Snowhead with their horses. It was pretty much backtracking, as they had to head back in the same direction of Hyrule to get to the mountain. They made slow progress, but eventually made it to the base of the mountain where it was impossible to continue on horseback.

"Are you okay to stay here Noble?" Ryin asked, stroking her horse's face. Noble whinnied. "Good boy."

"Eclipse is used to being on her own." Horo said, patting the black mare.

"Because you suck and never care for your various pets. I bring Terk fighting with me and go riding almost every day-even when I'm sitting at home doing nothing. You never go out with Mist." Ryin sniffed as they set out up the mountain.

"Don't even try to pin animal cruelty on me. I care for them more than you think."

"Uh-huh. You should bring Mist out with us more often then. She's pretty handy to have and I'm sure she'd love it."

"Unlike Terk Mist isn't really a fighter. Also, you can ride Terk and keep up with me and Eclipse, but if I were to ride Mist, I'd be too high up to talk with you. And I _know_ how much you like talking to me."

Ryin rolled her eyes. "Oh most defiantly. By the goddesses, it's _freezing_ here!" she complained, rubbing her arms.

"Well, it is called _Snow_head. It's always cold."

"But it's the middle of summer! It shouldn't be this cold!"

"I'm not cold."

Ryin snorted. "Yeah, well that because you have an abnormally high body temperature. You feel feverish on a normal day, I wouldn't expect you to be cold now. Why is that anyways?"

"Why is what, what way?"

"Why're you so warm all the time?"

He was quiet for a moment, then "My dad was that way too. And my brothers and sister, they were always hot."

This was the first she'd ever heard him mention his family and she wanted to exploit it. "Really? Are they always cold now?"

"What do you mean?"

"You spoke of them in past tense. Did they start cooling off?"

"No."

"Then, what's with the past tense?"

"Because I always remembered them as being really warm."

"Remember...? Sooo, they're not really warm now. Why not?"

"Because."

Ryin frowned. She was getting nowhere. "Because why? How do you know they're not warm anymore?"

"I haven't seen them in eleven and a half years."

_Aha! _She was getting somewhere! "Why not? You should go see them. I'm sure they miss you."

"They don't."

"I don't believe you." he shrugged. "You should probably go see them. I know my family'd miss me after eleven years and I'd miss them as well. Do you miss them?"

"Yes. Very much."

She grit her teeth. She hated when he got monosyllabic. It usually either meant a lot of digging for her or that he'd start getting quiet soon and not say any more. "Then...? Go see them."

"I can't."

"Why?" She was getting frustrated now.

"They're too far away."

"Where are they?"

He looked down at her. "Do you want my coat?"

_No, I don't want your damn coat! I want to hear about your family!_ She thought angrily to herself. "No thank you. Where does your family live?"

"Far away." He said vaguely. "Are you sure? You look paler than usual and your cheeks are really red."

"I'm fine."

"Do you want me to carry you? I'm warm and it'll make the journey go much quicker."

Ryin sighed. She _was_ really cold and the ground was pretty icy on her flat-footed boots. She kept slipping and it was slowing them down. "If I say yes, does that mean you'll stop telling me about your family?"

"I didn't know I was telling you about them now. I thought I was just giving you vague little snippets about them in order to make you frustrated."

She glared at him. "Oh _I _see how it is. I thought that that was just my imagination. Well then, since you are aware of what I'm doing, I might as well stop since you obviously won't give me anything of use. And _you_ can give me a piggyback."

"It's what I do best. Maybe you should just give up." He said as she climbed onto his back.

She shook her head. "Uh-uh. Not gonna happen. I told you that I was going to expose all your secrets, and I'm not going to stop until I do."

"Have fun with that." Then they were both quiet and lost in their thoughts for the rest of the trek.

A couple hours later they arrived at the mountain village. "I think the goron village is this way." Ryin said pointing off to the right of the path they just came from.

"No, it's this way." Horo corrected, leading her off in the other direction.

"No way!" She said, pulling away. "I remember, my parents said it was this way."

"They said Snowhead was to the right, the gorons are this way. Trust me, I'd know better than you." He clamped his mouth shut instantly but Ryin had all ready caught on.

"_Excuse me!? _You would know better than me? Who the hell decided that?"

He backpedaled. "What I meant to say, is that you don't really have a very good sense of direction."

"You may know your way around better and don't get lost as easily, but I'm the one with the memory. I can remember every single detail of my life. Do you want to know what the first thing Colin said to me and what we were wearing at the time? Because I can tell you. Go on, ask." She was still insulted.

"Ryin, I _know_ you have an irrefutable memory but I've been to Snowhead countless times before, I know my way around." Ryin watched him suspiciously. "A little trust please?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Fine. If we get lost then I'm blaming you and I will continue blaming you for the rest of your miserable life."

He laughed. They headed off in the direction Horo indicated. "I didn't know my life was miserable."

"Didn't know your-WHAT? How can you not!? You basically live in a constant state of depression. You're always broody and grumpy and talking about your sin and how everything is always your fault. You have a pretty miserable life." He considered this for a moment. "Oh, and by the way, I was talking about how I was going to make your life miserable if you mess this up."

"Thanks for your vote of confidence." He rolled his eyes.

"Anytime."

***astrix astrix astrix***

"So how come Aveil's still the leader of the Pirate Gerudo? She's pretty old for a leader, is she not?" Link asked as he and Reena walked along the rocky shore towards the pirate hideout.

"Well... that's the thing about the gerudo. We have rules."

"Oh trust me, I know." He replied dryly, thinking back to his various errands for Nabooru as a teenager.

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah I'm sure you do." She said sarcastically. "No, this goes beyond the 'men-suck-and-are-untrustworthy-so-you-should-hate-them' rule. It's about leadership formalities and rituals."

"Like what?"

She sighed. "Look, there are a whole bunch of conditions and things that have to be met and several different situations where you can become leader and be fired from your position. I really don't want to explain it all to you."

"The short version then."

"To become leader you have to beat the current leader in a duel. Anyone can do this, as long as they're female. But the leader has the right to refuse any challenge. Or, if the current leader dies in battle or something then their second in command-the lieutenant-takes over. That's me still...technically."

"Of the desert. But this isn't what I asked. I asked how come Aveil's still the leader."

"I'm getting to that. Goddesses, you're an impatient person!"

"You've rubbed off on me."

"Good. Anyways, basically the only way for a leadership to be ended is by losing in a duel or by death." She paused. "Or by mutiny, or if the king chooses to get rid of you. But neither of those ever happen. Meaning, Aveil's still alive and apparently she's good enough to not have been beaten by anyone in the past eighteen years. Either that or they like her leadership so much that they want her to stay so they don't challenge her. Ganondorf's dead and there won't be another king for another couple years or so and if everyone seems to be happy with her leadership there won't be any major mutiny anytime soon. Therefore, she's still leader."

"I suppose it's the same deal with Nabooru then, right?"

Reena nodded. "Only Nabooru's a much better leader." She sniffed.

Link smirked. "You're still a gerudo at heart."

She rolled her eyes at him. "You should see the large collection of stuff I have to give to her in exchange for my life. I haven't visited in years, so I've just been collecting treasure to give to her, hopefully she'll go for it and spare my life."

He thought for a moment. "Why aren't you leader? You've beaten Nabooru before."

She waved a hand. "Those were sparring matches, they don't count. It has to be official. Besides, I was already lieutenant, I never wanted to be leader. I'm kinda glad I was never leader, we probably wouldn't be as good as friends, and _defiantly_ not married."

Link laughed and wove their fingers together. They continued walking in silence along the beach until they came to a huge rock wall.

Reena pursed her lips together and regarded it with interest. "Let's camp here tonight. It's getting late and I don't really feel like dealing with Aveil right now."

"Here? We're on a rock in the middle of a lagoon. What if we fall in?"

"You can swim. I'm sure you'll manage." She looked around. "Remember? This is close to where I found you unconscious shortly after we became 'official' friends. You were practically dead and you wanted to go fight a fish. Pfft! You were lucky I was there."

Link sighed and ribbed his temples-he remembered. "I'm always lucky you're here."

"Good. Now, go set up camp-I'm tired."

***astrix astrix astrix***

"_WHAT!?_" Ryin bellowed, not quite sure she heard him properly.

"You heard me, hylian." Boomed the goron. "Our leader doesn't want to see, let alone _talk_ to a bunch of couple spineless pale-faced creatures such as yourselves."

"Watch it..." Ryin snarled, taking a step towards him but Horo held out a hand and gave his head the tiniest of shakes.

"What can we do to earn audience with your leader?" Horo asked politely.

"Our great leader will only _consider _speaking with people who have proved themselves worthy."

"And how do we do that?" Ryin growled through gritted teeth.

The goron crossed his arms across his massive chest. "You don't." It boomed. "All hylians are spineless, cowardly scum. The only way _you_ could gain audience is by doing something truly amazing. Until then, get out." He turned and rolled away, the chamber door shut behind him.

"Great! Now what?" Ryin exploded. "Those stupid gorons! What's their problem anyways? They used to be so peaceful."

"They're angry at the hylians for cutting off trade routes with them. You can't blame them."

"Can't they see we're trying to help them?" she sighed. "Whatever, not important. What is, is what are we going to do? We'll have to pull off something so great, even the gorons can't deny us."

Horo thought for a moment. He seemed to be wrangling with two ideas, trying to work them out in his head. "Okay. I've got an idea."

She waited expectantly but nothing came. "Annnnnd...? That idea would be...?"

He closed his eyes for a moment and heaved a deep sigh. "We need to go defeat the beast of Snowhead."

**Nothing too interesting happened in that chapter. The Terminian battles will happen next chapter. Both of them. It'll be fun to write. Reena and Link back in action-WOO! Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Maybe if I get some reviews I'll update sooner, actually I'll just be really happy with any reviews. Anyways, see you most likely in a couple months!**


End file.
